Growing Shadows
by PokerFace312
Summary: When a member of the Shounan Tantei-Dan is murdered by the Black Organization, it sets off a chain reaction between Good and Evil. With time running out, will Conan finally stop Them once and for all? And will Conan be able to return to his true form?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Sheer terror coursed through his veins as he burst into the room, his heart pounding in his chest like a jackrabbit's feet against the ground as it's pursued by a predator. He had seen it seeping under the door, and his mind had automatically jumped to the worst conclusion.

And, as usual, his deduction had been spot on.

There she was, sprawled on the ground. An island in the sea of red.

_God! Oh God, she's dead!_ he thought, _she's dead and it's all my fault! _And it was. If she was dead, he was the one who had inadvertently caused it to happen.

No, she had a pulse! It was weak, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. Would he be able to revive her? He had to.

"Wake up! Wake up, please! Don't leave me! Come on! Please, wake up!" He yelled at her still body in desperation.

Her eyes opened!

Quietly, she breathed his name. Her voice was rough, and so subdued that he was barely able to hear her.

"Don't speak! You have to save your strength! You're going to live! You have to!" he exclaimed, his voice breaking at the end.

She was only able to utter one last word before her eyes drifted closed once again, and her body went limp in his arms. "Why?"


	2. 1: Surprise Encounter

**Chapter 1: Surprise Encounter **

"I can't believe how long it's been since we've had a case!" exclaimed Genta.

School had just let out for the day and the Shounan Tantei-Dan somehow had gotten onto the topic of previous cases the group had solved as they sauntered towards home, small snowflakes dancing around their heads. Shinichi enjoyed thinking back to all those old cases. It really hadn't been that long, yet it felt like it had been _forever_ since he'd met this energetic bunch of children. He missed those days. Was it just him, or had the culprits been getting smarter as time wore on? The old cases had been a snap compared to the ones he was solving now.

"You shouldn't be complaining about a thing like that," Haibara pointed out. "You wouldn't want to be like _some_people who have bodies popping up wherever they go."

"Barro! At least _I'm _not a murderer!" Shinichi shot back, to which he in turn received a cold glare from the girl. It was the comeback he always used when she pulled her "murder magnet" card. She always insisted that since she was only the creator of the poison, as opposed to being the one who forced it upon its victims, she technically wasn't a killer. But even so, it always seems to strike a chord when he said it.

"Anyway, it's not like bodies have always 'popped up wherever I go', as you so quaintly put it! It only began happening after that beheading on the jet c-" He suddenly broke off, glancing around at the rest of the Shounan Tantei-Dan. He'd mentioned the case that had occurred right before he had been shrunk. The one he'd solved as Kudou Shinichi, not Edogawa Conan.

He then made eye contact with Haibara, who shook her head ever so slightly. She knew as well as Shinichi what mentioning the gruesome case could cause. Just thinking about it caused a cold finger to run down his spine, despite the day being relatively warm for this time of year, the mercury hovering just a few notches below zero. "Er, I mean, it started happening after that case with Okino Yoko-san. That was a depressing one, how the guy committed suicide because he thought that he and Okino-san would never get back together. He had no idea what had really happened, and ended up dying simply because he didn't the truth."

Shinichi sighed mentally with relief when the kids seemed to accept that topic, ignoring the abrupt subject change.

"Do you remember that spooky case way back before we even called ourselves the Shounan Tantei-Dan?" Ayumi reminisced, "The one where the guy had been locked in a cell by his oka-san for _five years_ because he accidently killed his otou-san? Conan-kun was so brave in that one!" The infatuated girl glanced over at the boy in question with a wistful look in her eye.

As response, Shinichi simply turned his head away slightly, a bored look on his face. _Kami. This girl just won't give up, will she?_ Ayumi's crush on him had been flattering at first, possibly even cute, but her persistence was just plain annoying.

"Of course I don't remember! I got knocked out by that stupid oba-san before any of the action started!" Mitsuhiko retorted, "it wasn't until the next morning that I woke up outside. And with Genta-kun snoring in my ear no less!"

"Oi! I don't snore! I just sometimes breathe loudly when I'm asleep!" defended the obese boy. Shinichi let out a quiet chuckle at the boy's pathetic attempt at an excuse.

As he noticed that the group was nearing the corner where he and Haibara would split away from the three rug rats, he breathed a gentle sign of relief. He needed to talk like a _teenager_ again. The day's classes had been duller than usual, and Shinichi honestly suspected the teacher of trying to bore him to death. They'd been learning how to multiply the numbers one through five. How much simpler could it get? He wanted to do _high school level _math. He wanted to be at least a little challenged. Most of all, he wanted to be him again.

But another day had passed, and still he was no closer to stopping the Black Organization. But he _would _stop them. He would, or die trying.

* * *

Reaching the corner, they said their farewells and began heading in opposite directions of each other. As soon as the rest Shounan Tantei-Dan were out of earshot, Ayumi saw Conan turn to Ai and begin conversing with her, a serious look on his face. "I wonder what it is they're always talking about when we're not around…" she thought aloud as she strode away with Genta and Mitsuhiko.

"Probably about something really stupid, or maybe saying we're baka," sneered Genta. "They think they're _so_ much better than us just because they're smart!"

"You know Genta-kun, being smart really isn't such a bad thing," replied Mitsuhiko, "Although I have to say, they do seem to know more than they let on."

"And why does Conan-kun always talk so differently around grown-ups? Usually he acts _like_ one, but when he's _around_ them he sounds more like Genta-kun than he does himself. Although I do find it kawaii when he does that!" Ayumi added.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she noted that when she said the last sentence the two boys' expressions hardened slightly. It always amused her to see their reactions when she said things like that. They were a few blocks away from where they'd split off from the other two as they neared a crossroad.

"Well, it's my turn to leave now," Mitsuhiko cut in as he turned to march away from his two life-long friends. "If I find out you've been talking about _me_ behind _my_ back, the Shounan Tentei-Dan are going to have to investigate _you're_ murders." He called jokingly after them, a grin on his phizog.

Now only Ayumi and Genta were left.

"I'm hungry!" complained Genta, his stomach growling loudly in agreement. As a sudden gust of wind blew past them, his nose turned skyward and he began sniffing at the air like a basset hound. "Kabobs!" he exclaimed, dashing ahead at full speed. A few blocks further on was a kabob stand, towards which Genta was racing.

When food was involved, the normally turtle-slow boy turned into the world's fastest sprinter. "Genta-kun! Matte!" cried Ayumi desperately as her friend sped away.

"Go home without me! I'll be here _all_ day!" he replied, his voice fading as he slowly drew farther away.

Ayumi suddenly felt frightened. She and Genta always wouldn't split up until they were _much_ closer to their houses. But all the same, she began striding dejectedly towards her home, praying that nothing bad would happen. She didn't want to make herself look like a coward after all. However, she had _never_ been a fan of this part of Beika.

A few minutes later, as a cold wind was beginning to set in, she was getting close to her apartment building when it finally struck her that she was alone. Really _alone_. Genta wasn't there to protect her if something happened. She was terrified. _I have to get home!_ She thought, glancing around the empty street. _I have to get home as fast as possible, so that bad people can't get me! A shortcut!_

Up ahead was a back alley. By taking it, she wouldn't have to walk around the entire block! It would take off at least five minutes. Her mood brightening, she turned to walk down the alley. However, before she could take even one step, she stopped dead in her tracks. She drew a quick breath, her eyes widening and heart rate speeding so much that she could take note of the uneven thumping echoing in her ears.

A hundred meters down the cold passage way, a trembling man was being forced against the wall of a nearby building. A silenced gun was pressed to his sweating forehead, wielded by a tall man in black, who had long, blond hair that reached down to the back of his knees.

_

* * *

_

_A nice short chapter to start it off! I know this one isn't great, but the first half of the chapter was originally going to happen later. Then I decided on this plot line... So basically, that part went from being from Conan's perspective, to Ayumi's perspective, and then two days ago I changed it back to Conan's again. *Sigh* annoying thing..._

_Anywho, thanks for all the feedback! I really appreciate it! _

_For anyone that's wondering, I plan to release a new chapter every Wednesday. I have more done, but having a set release schedule will stop me from putting if off for months, as well as it makes me feel less rushed so I can write more easily._

_And yes, as you may have noticed, I'm including a Japanese word here and there. I guess you could call it practice since I'm attempting to teach it to myself through Meitantei Conan.=D _

_Also, I realized I forgot to put a disclaimer for the prologue, so here's my suckish attempt:_

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!

_Voila! And there you have it!_


	3. 2: The Death of a Shounan Tantei

**Chapter 2: The Death of a Shounan Tantei**

"_Anything that gets in Their way, They _destroy_."  
__-Haibara Ai ~A White World~_

A scream tore through Ayumi's throat, high and shrill as it echoed around the alley.

The man with the long hair turned his head to glace at her, a look of annoyance springing onto his face. "Oh, well isn't that just perfect…" he half groaned, his low voice rising and lowing in a way that made Ayumi sure that he didn't have a single ounce of kindness in his body.

Without looking back at the whimpering man standing at the business end of the gun, he pulled the trigger. The man slowly slid down the wall until he was hunched on the ground, a splatter of crimson blood left dripping down the side of the building.

"So Gin, what are we going to do with this one?" interjected a second man with a larger, huskier build and large dark sunglasses, whom Ayumi had barely noticed until he had addressed his partner.

"The same thing we just did to Daiquiri here," the tall one, Gin, answered, motioning towards the dead man he'd just shot. "A bullet to the brains."

Gin raised his left arm to point the gun at Ayumi, a cold smile slowly spreading on his pallid face.

Instinct suddenly kicked in. Ayumi hurriedly spun on her small heel and began a full out sprint that would've put Genta's mad dash to the kabob stand earlier to shame.

But she wasn't swift enough.

Bang!

She yelped as sudden fire licked at her calve, extending up her body through a nerve. She'd been shot. She collapsed onto the ground with a small cry, landing on the cold, hard concrete. The coolness felt good against the searing wound, but it didn't stand a chance fighting against the mind-consuming agony, of which another spasm rocked through her body with her every heartbeat.

She couldn't get up. She was in too much torture for her to comprehend much of anything, forget about trying to think around it. She couldn't run away if she tried.

Slowly, as if to purposely build the suspense so that Ayumi would be even more petrified, Gin stalked towards her. He carefully knelt down in front of her, as to not get even a single, solitary drop of her blood on himself, as tears sprung to Ayumi's eyes. Skilfully, he raised his gun to point it once again at her. "This is what you get for sticking your little nose where it doesn't belong…" he sneered, his eyes narrowing cruelly as his pointer finger closed around the trigger.

A scream rang out.

But the shriek was not Ayumi's. It was Gin's.

In a final attempt to maintain her own existence, Ayumi had grabbed the tantei badge that had been pinned to her shirt. She had yanked it off hard enough for the back to fall away, leaving the point undeterred.

As Gin had leaned down to press the silencer against her head, Ayumi had taken the badge and plunged it into his right eye with all the force she could muster. And he had screamed almost as loud as she had when she'd seen him pointing the gun at that Daiquiri guy.

He jerked away from her, dropping his weapon to clutch at his eye. He grunted, stifling another scream, as he tore out the now ruby coloured pin, splattering blood on the ground in front of his feet. "Vodka! Finish the job!" he yelled at his counterpart as more of the sickeningly warm liquid streamed down his cheek.

"Are you all right, Aniki?" Vodka worried, as he hurried towards his fallen partner.

"Forget about me! Just kill that damn girl!" he yelled in frustration.

Vodka crept forward to Ayumi, pulling out his own pistol.

_What am I going to do?_ She thought, helplessly grasping for straws, but finding none of the sort. Under other circumstances, she may have found another way to defend herself, but the throbbing coming her leg was distracting her too much.

Not even bothering to kneel down, possibly for fear that Ayumi had another badge on her person, Vodka pointed his gun at the girl, his expression not changing by a millimetre. "This is for harming Gin."

Bang!

As the gunshot resonated around her, Ayumi was enveloped in a cool, black cloth. A cloth that devoured anything it touched. Even her thoughts.

* * *

Gin smiled maliciously as he saw the girl's tiny body slump limply to the ground. _The little bastard deserved it for what she did to my eye. Damn, I can't even see out of it_, he thought, closing his left eye so only the right one, the one in which the girl had stabbed him, was the lone open one, testing it. _What did she get me with anyway…?_ He reopened his left eye and began to search around the spot he had been standing at when he'd dislodged the object.

After a moment of searching, he located the pointed rectangular piece of metal which had been drenched in his blood, lying in a puddle of the girl's own blood. _Some sort of pin…? Wait, there seems to be something written on it…_

He used it thumb to wipe away some of the scarlet fluid, and pondered at the two English words written on it. "**Detective Boys**…" he read aloud.

"What have you got there?" Vodka asked, strolling over to Gin as if he hadn't just killed a girl who couldn't have been more than six or seven years old.

"The thing that kid gouged my eye out with. It's some sort of pin with the words **Detective Boys** on it." The words rung a tiny bell in the back of his mind, just as the girl's face had, but, as he couldn't seem to place it, he chose to simply push it aside. He never liked to remember the faces and names of the people he'd killed. _If you let yourself remember, you eventually end up going soft_, he thought to himself.

"Forget about it…" Gin muttered, only partially speaking to Vodka. But somehow he didn't think he would be able to. Just like how the body that tantei-wannabe, Kudou Shinichi, had never completely left his mind. He'd always had an odd inkling that that boy had somehow survived. But that was impossible. He'd been told that all the animals that the poison had been tested on had died within a few minutes after ingestion, so surely it would've worked on a high school student who was already bleeding from the head.

"What are we going to tell Ano Kata?" Vodka enquired, glancing back at the tiny corpse.

"We'll say that the subject has been eliminated. There's no reason she has to know that someone got in the way now that the girl's dead. Anyways, let's get rid of these bodies before someone else runs into us."

Carefully, as to not come in contact with anyone else, they dragged Daiquiri's and the girl's corpses to the opposite entrance of the alley than the girl had entered. There stood Gin's black Porsche 356A, right where he had left it.

As he got into the drivers' seat, he glanced at the blood stained badge one last time before tossing it onto the road. He had hesitated in doing so, partly because he didn't want to leave evidence about who had been killed, and also, though he tried to convince himself otherwise, he had a strange suspicion that the badge was important somehow, but that it would cause him and the rest of the Organization trouble if he kept it any longer. Nevertheless, he threw it aside, because if someone caught him carrying the unique accessory, they might learn that he had had a hand in the girls' death.

What he failed to realize as he started the engine, was that when the pin had dug into his eye, the button on the back of it had been pushed down. Then, when his blood had gotten on it, it had made the button stick, so that a few miles away, a boy and a girl, who looked ten years younger than they actually were, were listening to the gentle hum of the Porsche driving away…

* * *

_This can _not_ be happening! _Shinichi yelled mentally as the sound of the car slowly died away. He'd heard it all: Gin's scream, his and Vodka's later conversation, them driving away... and Ayumi's death. _How could They kill her? She was just a child; couldn't They have just knocked her out or _something_? And who's this Ano Kata They were talking about? _

A few meters away, Haibara had sunk to the ground, shaking with both anger and sadness. She was gripping her own tantei badge so tightly that the blunt mental had managed to cut through her skin, the cardinal coloured liquid gradually dripping to the floor. "_Why_?" She finally gasped. "_Why_ did she have to run into those bastards? Why does this _always_ happen?"

_She must be thinking about her family…_thought Shinichi dejectedly. Her entire family had already been killed by the Black Organization. If he recalled correctly, Haibara had been no older than Ayumi when her parents had died in an "accident", and Shinichi had witnessed Akemi's death first hand. Now they'd killed little Ayumi, of whom Haibara had thought of like a little sister.

By some amazing good fortune, both Genta and Mitsuhiko had had to have Agasa-Hakase fix their own badges because of various reasons, so they had no notion of what had just taken place in that alley. For that, Shinichi was glad.

"We'll stop them," he proclaimed kneeling to put a hand on Haibara's shaking shoulder. "We'll bring them down, and take everything they care about away from them. Just as they have done to us."

* * *

_Happy Saint Patrick's Day! And hooray for my birthday last Friday! I'm 14 now! Woot! (And I got the first five volumes of DC as presents!)_

_As you may have noticed, there is a quote at the top of the chapter. This was because of a random idea I had yesterday. And yeah, you caught me... This quote is from the Case Closed version... but the original text didn't work for the chapter! So anyway, I plan to put a quote at the beginning of each new chapter I publish! I've already got ones for the next five chapters! (If you're wondering, I currently have the first 8 chapters completed. They're just waiting to be edited.)_

_Moving on... I HATE TYPOS!!! I was going through what I've written so far for this, and when I was reading chapter one, I found at least three! *Sneaks away to fix them before anyone else notices...*_

_Once again, thanks for all the good reviews, and I'll make sure to check out your guys' work (eventually...)! Just remember, don't be afraid to include criticism. I like to know if there's something in my writing that people are bugged by._

_Hmmm...am I forgetting something...? Think, think , think... ummmmmm...........there was something else....... oh right! Disclaimer:_

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!

_Okay... now I'm done! (I still feel like I'm forgetting something though... oh well!)_


	4. 3: A Rude Awakening

**Chapter 3: A Rude Awakening**

"_That kid with the glasses... That kid will give hope."  
-Sato Miwako ~Finding Evidence~_

"Moshi moshi?" Sato Miwako said, answering the phone. It had been a slow day at the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Department, so Miwako had been surprised when the phone had begun to ring. _Probably just a burglary or something..._

"Oh good, someone's there...I'd like to file a missing persons report?" the woman on the other end explained, forming the statement into a question because of nervousness.

_A missing person...? Well, at least it has some chance of being interesting,_ Miwako considered, extracting a form to fill out the information on. "Could I please have the names of you and the person you'd like to file the report on, as well as your relation to them?"

"Yes... my name is Yoshida Sachi. The person is my daughter, Yoshida Ayumi."

"Yoshida... Ayumi..." Miwako repeated, writing the names on the form. The name sounded strangely familiar. "Could she be the Ayumi-chan who's sometimes with Edogawa Conan-kun?"

"Yes... that's her. How do you know Conan-kun?"

"He's come with Mouri-tantei on several cases," she explained. _And in some cases, he seems to do more than Mouri-san does... So she's a friend of Conan-kun's. This might just get interesting after all. _"So how long has Ayumi-chan been missing?"

"Well, that's the thing... it's only been a few hours, but she still hasn't called to say where she is or anything! She should have been back long ago!"

"Gomenasai, Yoshida-san, but we can't file a report until a person's been missing for at least twenty-four hours. Don't worry. I'm sure she's simply gone out somewhere with her friends and just forgot to call."

"But I'm sure something happened! I called all the other kids' guardians and Ayumi-chan isn't there! Also, Ayumi-chan and Genta-kun usually walk home together until they're almost at the apartment building we live in, but according to Kojima-san, Genta-kun said he stopped at a kabob stand, so Ayumi-chan went ahead without him!

"Also, around the time Ayumi-chan usually gets home I was getting back from doing some grocery shopping, and I heard what sounded like a gunshot! At first I thought it must just be some teenagers setting off firecrackers, but what if something happened to her, keiji-san?"

"A gunshot?" Miwako pondered, glancing to her right, where Takagi was taking a break from writing up a report to listen to Miwako's side of the conversation. "Well, it has been a fairly slow day." She said into the receiver, "I suppose I could see if a few officers could take a look."

"Oh, arigato gozaimasu, keiji-san!" Mrs. Yoshida exulted, and Miwako began asking for the other required information for the report.

_What could have happened to Ayumi-chan? She's just a little girl after all, how much trouble could she get into? _Miwako told herself. Then she remembered that this was one of Conan's friends. _A whole lot..._

* * *

"So where did the gunshot originate from?" asked Takagi Wataru. They were at the Yoshida residence, questioning the woman of the house about the disappearance of her daughter.

"I-it was somewhere around that direction," Mrs. Yoshida responded, pointing North. "It sounded like it couldn't have been more than a block or two away..."

"Arigato for your help, Yoshida-san. We'll go take a look," Inspector Megure told her.

The two police officers began going around the neighbourhood, in the vicinity of the area the woman had pointed out, asking around to see if there were any more witnesses. It seemed that the area the shots had come from was around an alley two blocks away from the Yoshida's apartment building.

"If it really was a shooting, then it happening in a back alley would make sense. That way there'd be less of a chance that they'd be seen," the inspector pointed out.

"Let's just hope that it really _was_ only firecrackers..." added Wataru.

He and Megure strode towards the alley in question. But as they turned to walk down it, they were shocked at who they saw there, kneeling to get a better look at the dried blood.

"Conan-kun?"

* * *

Shinichi turned his head towards the direction his name had been called from, only to see Officer Takagi rounding the corner to enter the alley, followed closely by Inspector Megure.

"And Ai-kun!" the inspector added, moving forward so that he was a few feet in front of Takagi.

"M-Megure-keibu! Takagi-keiji!"Shinichi exclaimed, "Um...what are you two doing here?"

"Shouldn't _we_ be the ones asking _you_ that?" retorted Megure.

"We asked first," he shot back, raising his voice by a few octaves so that it was a more childish tone. This was _not_ good. How was he supposed to explain to them why he and Haibara were at the scene of one of their friend's murder?

"We received a call from Yoshida-san about Ayumi-chan's disappearance, as well as suspected gunshots from somewhere near this alley," clarified Takagi. Luckily, ever since that bomb scare where he and Shinichi had nearly been killed due to a decision made by the latter, Takagi seemed to realize that "Conan" wasn't as sweet and innocent as he appeared to be. However, he didn't appear to have put two and two together to figure out that Edogawa Conan and Kudou Shinichi were one and the same.

"I see," spoke up Haibara, "So you decided to investigate here, fearing that the girl had been harmed." The shrunken scientist had been taking samples from the dried pools of blood in order to test whether or not they were really Ayumi's. She seemed to be having trouble believing that her close friend had been killed by her former allies, despite the fact that she had heard it happen.

Shinichi could relate. He too was having difficulties comprehending the girl's death, just as he, only one short year ago, had barely managed to wrap his head around the concept that he had gotten mixed up in a national crime ring, putting everyone he held close at risk.

"Yeah, that's correct," replied Inspector Megure, "So now do you want to explain why _you're _here?"

"We were going to visit Ayumi-chan when we heard some people talking about gunshots, so we decided to take a look," explained Shinichi, thinking up something innocent sounding on the spot.

"And? Have you found anything?" questioned Takagi.

"Aside from the dried blood, we haven't noticed anything that seemed out of place," lied the boy, fingering the blood covered tantei badge in the pocket of his hoodie. Luck seemed to be on his side for the time being, as he'd managed to locate the miniature transmitter just minutes before the two policemen had arrived on the scene. If they had been the ones to find it, Shinichi was sure they would have recognized it as the missing girl's. If that happened, there was a good chance that they would have been able to deduce that one of the victims had been Ayumi. If the Organization learned that the police were investigating the death, both men could very easily be killed.

Just as Shinichi almost had.

"Anyway, you kids shouldn't be at a place like this," Megure said, interrupting Shinichi's thoughts. "Would you like me to drive you two over to Mouri-san's?"

Shinichi was about to accept the offer when Haibara walked up to stand beside him. "No, it's fine. It's not a far walk to Agasa-Hakase's," she stated in her usual, emotionless tone.

Confused, Shinichi began walking away with her. When they were about a hundred meters away from the alley, he stepped in front of her, folding his arms across his chest, so that she stopped. "Nahnee?" she asked.

"What are you planning?" he inquired suspiciously.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"No idea...Gin and Vodka are somewhere in the city, but you choose to _walk_ instead of getting a ride home in a police cruiser! Obviously you have some reason to not be around _them_," he shot back, motioning towards the two police officers as he said the last sentence.

After a quick glance at the alleyway they had just vacated to make sure the two people Shinichi had been talking about weren't listening to them, Haibara began walking forwards again. "I need to get some files off of the hospital computers," she murmured as she passed Shinichi. "Regarding Yoshida-san's death."

* * *

As they walked through the doors to the Haido Central Hospital, Shiho noticed Kudou glance around, as if to make sure that they weren't being watched. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked her worriedly.

"Oh course," she replied, making sure that her amusement didn't show. It was so rare to see Kudou unsure of something that she found it hard to keep from smiling. "I need to get that information, and this should be the best place to do it. Just stick with the plan and hopefully nothing will go wrong."

With a sigh, his face changed from the serious expression that he usually wore when he was around people in the know, to the happy, energetic little kid one that he often would use to fool people. Shiho had to admit, he was quite the actor.

Quickly, he ran up to the reception desk and she heard him start talking to the woman working there. "Hi Oba-san!" he exclaimed, jumping up so that he was hanging off the edge of the desk.

"Well, hello there little boy! Where are your parents? You shouldn't be around here by yourself!" the woman answered, obviously trying not to look annoyed by Kudou.

"They're in room 813, but I don't know where that is..." he answered, scrunching his eyebrows together so that he looked confused. "Can you show me where they are?"

"I'm working right now sweetie! But I'm sure Masago-san here can help you." The receptionist motioned towards a nurse that was passing by, who then stopped and smiled widely at the boy.

"She's scary... I want you to show me! You're nice!"

Irritated, the woman agreed to show Kudou where the room was. After putting a "back in ten minutes" sign on the desk, she shooed him towards the nearby hallway. Just before he was out of sight, he turned his head slightly to wink at Shiho, who'd been nonchalantly pretending to read a magazine while leaning against a wall.

As soon as the receptionist had disappeared, Shiho rushed behind the desk to where the computer was and stuck a USB drive into the latter. She quickly opened the patient files, anything from the past thirty years, and began to load them onto the USB. It had taken forever to find one that would be able to hold all the information, but it had been worth it when she saw the words "download complete" appear on the computer screen.

Just as they appeared though, the receptionist came out of the hallway, a confused look on her face. Shiho yanked the USB out of the machine and stuffed in her pocket just milliseconds before the woman turned to go behind the counter.

"What do you think you're doing back here?" she exclaimed, looking shocked. Then, as she saw Shiho's face, the shock changed to panic.

In the same instant, Shiho's body froze. This woman was giving off that unmistakable scent of evil.

This woman was a member of the Black Organization.

* * *

_WARNING! The following rant is longer (and much more random) than usual! (It's official. I shouldn't be allowed on the computer after 1AM... not that my parents know...It's in this where you can see how I usually write...)Plus… I'm finally responding to reviews! _

_Sorry about this being a few days late! I've been distracted recently! _

_I finally found a subbed version of Detective Conan vs. Lupin III on Wednesday! A two and a half hour long movie on top of studying for my Science Unit Exam I had today... eep! (I probably failed... I BLAME DC!) I'm not entirely sure what to make of the movie... on one hand, it's strange, perverted in a few places, out of character, and just overall confusing(possibly just because I have very little idea what Lupin III is about...), but on the other hand, it was a more or less good plot line, funny, random (always a good thing in my book!), and it had a __**extremely **__cute ShinRan moment (squee~!)that was pure EPICness! It's a good movie, but not one that I'd probably watch more than two more times... (other movies like this are DC movies 9, 11 and 12 (not saying they aren't good. I just think the others are better...), Knowing (who would've thought it'd end up being some boring apocalyptic religious thing?), The Box (watched on Saturday with my basketball team as celebration for making it to provincials! GO BOLTS!), Hairspray (one of my friends sings the first line to one of the songs every five seconds! Gah!) , Star Trek (don't kill me for not being a trekky!), etc.) _

_Speaking of movies... you HAVE to see Alice in Wonderland! If you haven't seen it yet, get off your lazy butt and buy tickets to it (not saying there's anything wrong with being a lazy butt. I happen to be one...)! I saw it last Sunday with my friends in 3D! WIN! Good plot line (NO! It is __**not**__ the original plot!), realistic characters (if you consider talking blue caterpillars, over sized jaberwakis and constantly-smiling-creepily disappearing cats realistic...), and was violent without being over-the-top gory (hehehehe... not going to give away spoilers on THAT one!)! The mad hatter was awesome! Go Johnny Depp! Also, I loved the ending song (and not just because it happens to be sung by one of my favourite English artists...okay, so maybe it is! XD)_

_Also....I saw the official trailer for Lost Ship in the Sky this week! KYAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD KAITO KISS RAN?! From the trailer you can figure out that Ran thinks Kaito's Shinichi (hey, she's done it before!), But wtf was KAITO thinking?! WHAT ABOUT AOKO?!?!?!?!?!?! SHE'D KILL HIM WITH HER MOP IF SHE FOUND OUT!!!!!! God I wish I was better at Japanese... then I could watch it raw when it comes out and actually understand it! I'm still going to watch the raw anyway... I can't wait until October to watch it! My head would explode from lack of DC! I NEED NEW KAITO SCENES! I'M GETTING TIRED OF WATCHING OLD CLIPS AND AMVs 24/7! _

_Moving away from movies, I think I've officially gone insane. Today I stuck fifteen different DC pics up in my locker! I wonder what JC's (my health teacher) reaction will be during the next locker check... Stay tuned to find out!_

_Also, I am currently fighting against the evil that is "writer's" block with chapter 9... stupid brain for not being able to come up with fillers... and stupid fanfic for making it unrealistic if I leave out the fillers... on the bright side, the next four chapters to be released have some of my favourite scenes out of what I've written so far in them...! Heiji's fun to write about!_

_**Fan girl 666: **__Ayumi getting to hurt Gin was actually because of one of my friends. When she found out that I was killing Ayumi she threatened to rip up all my rough copies unless I either did that or killed Genta instead._

_**Haibara Kawaii:**__ Really? You thought that title was scary? Let's see what some other ones for later chapters… *looks at roughs* …Theoretical Suicide… Crimson Tears… Nothing Left but The End… Yeah. This should be fun. _

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!

_One last thing... (and yes, I know Moo is going to hate me for this, but I've been wanting to do this for awhile...) _

_**I LOST THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!**_

_(What is The Game you ask? Here's the rules: If you think about The Game, you lose The Game. Once you hear about The Game, you are playing The Game. Once you start playing, you never stop... __**ever**__! If you lose, you just start playing again! If you think about The Game, you must say out loud, "I lost The Game!" And you can't just whisper it! Like my LA teacher says, __**Loud and Proud**__! You have to scream it! Congrats people! You are now amongst the ranks of those playing The Game! The goal: To get some bigwig to say "I lost The Game!" on international television, then listen while the entire world says "I lost The Game!" together! What better way to unite nations? ;D Apparently people already got Obama to say it! XD)_


	5. 4: Hunting

**Chapter 4: Hunting**

"_Of course, you can do whatever you want with the one who ruined my plans..."  
__-Gin ~The Black Funeral~_

Shiho couldn't move. This couldn't be true. And yet there she stood, staring at a woman who was a member of the Organization that she herself had once been a part of. The Organization that wanted her dead, at any cost.

And the shell shocked woman was starring right back at her.

"Sherry!" the woman breathed, almost a question.

At the mention of her old codename, Shiho's legs started working again, and she began sprinting around the desk and out the door as fast as her shrunken legs could carry her, not daring to look back to see if she was being pursued.

_Why is there an Organization member at the hospital?_ She screamed into her head. The scent that had been coming off the receptionist wasn't very strong, which must have been why Shiho hadn't noticed it when Kudou had been talking to the woman. It must have been only a low ranking member. But still, she had recognized Shiho's face. Now the Organization would know to keep a look out for a mini Sherry, as well as the adult version.

It wasn't until Shiho had run a good five blocks before she realized that the footsteps behind her were too light to be those of a middle aged woman. She whipped around to see Kudou following a few meters back. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled at him as he caught up to her.

"_Me_?" he said in rebuttal, "aren't _you_ the one who said to wait outside the hospital for you, after I get away from the oba-san? Then suddenly I see you running like mad in the opposite direction from the place we agreed to meet! What happened?"

"She was one of Them."

"Them? You mean the Men in Black? Who was?" he said. His eyes widening, he whipped his head around as if the woman would suddenly appear out of nowhere.

"The receptionist. She couldn't have been more than a low ranking member. Why didn't she follow me...?"

"Who knows. But are you sure she was one of them? Your 'sixth sense' could've been wrong, right?"

"No, I'm certain of it," Shiho explained, "She knew that I'm Sherry. And by now, the rest of the Organization probably does too. They know that I've shrunk. And since she would've seen you run after me, they most likely will go after you as well. Whether you're Edogawa-kun or Kudou-kun doesn't matter. We're both as good as dead."

* * *

"Who is it? This really isn't a great time you know..." Gin yelled into his cell phone. And he meant it. He was just coming back from visiting the Organization's private doctor about the eye that girl had stabbed. Apparently, it had been too damaged to repair, so he was going to have to have it removed. The eye patch would certainly make him look more frightening, but the disadvantage was he wouldn't be able to see anything to his right.

"It's Cider," the woman on the other end of the line explained.

"You're the new recruit in charge of keeping an eye around the Haido Central Hospital, right? Whatever it is, I'm busy," he said, removing the phone from beside his ear so that he could end the call.

"It's about Sherry!"

Gin suddenly froze. "What about that _traitor_?" he snarled into the receiver.

"I think I found her."

"Where is she?"

"She _was _at the hospital I'm stationed at. She had what must've been that guy who helped her at the Haido City Hotel distract me while she was doing something behind the desk. She didn't seem to realize until I spotted her that I was in the Organization, so I don't think she was doing something to spy on me or anything like that. I think she must've taken some files off the hospital computer, because afterwards there was a 'download complete' message on it. I don't know what she downloaded though."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, this is the part that will probably interest you. She looks like a seven year old."

Gin was silent for a minute. "If this is a joke..."

"I'm not making this up! When I saw her, I noticed that she looked like a younger version of Sherry, but I didn't think it could actually be her! So I said her codename! The minute she heard it she was running full out for the door!"

"So why the hell didn't you kill her?"

"Because I was instructed that if I were to see her, I was to inform you before doing anything!"

Gin sighed in frustration. "I suppose it wasn't you fault, if you were just following orders. Come back to headquarters strait away. I want a bug and a camera hidden in every room in that hospital. If Sherry comes back, I want to see it for myself. Also, if you see her again, I want to be informed of it the second it happens."

"Sure Gin, whatever you say."

"One more thing, if I find out that this is another false lead, you'll suffer the same fate that Daiquiri did." Without waiting for Cider's reply, he hung up the phone and an evil smile spread across his face. _You won't have to run for much longer, Sherry. Soon this hunt will end, and you'll be sent to join your rotten sister in hell. I'll make sure of it. _

* * *

"It's definitely hers," Haibara said forlornly. The reason she'd taken the files off the hospital computer was so that they could get medical confirmation that Ayumi was in fact the one who'd been killed. As if they had had much doubt in the first place.

"So they really did kill her..." added Shinichi disbelievingly. "Kami, can you say déjà vu? It's almost the same circumstances that happened to me back at Tropical Land. The whole reason both incidents happened, was because Ayumi and I were in the wrong place, at the wrong time." Though it had been almost a year since he had shrunken, that memory had always remained, clear as crystal, in his mind. Every second, every word. What had started out seeming like a normal, unofficial date with Ran. A ride on a jet coaster. A gruesome murder. The man in black blackmailing that company president. Something hard hitting him over the back of the head, not hard enough to knock him out, but he'd still been dazed. The untested poison, which he now knew to be Apotoxin 4869, slipping down his throat. And the burning.

Yes, he remembered the burning all right.

It was the same excruciating pain he endured every time he managed to temporarily change back into himself again. But he was always willing to feel that agony, if it meant even a few minutes where he could be with Ran. Be with her without having to be someone else.

And now, another person close to him had been affected by the Organization. Not just affected, but _killed_. All because they'd seen something they weren't supposed to. All because he hadn't stopped Them yet.

But soon, the final battle would be fought. The coin would be flipped, and fate would decide which side would triumph over the other. But right now, there was a head on both sides of the coin. And Shinichi was betting on tails.

* * *

_Another week, another chapter. *Sigh* I'm having too much of my time taken up by this, so I have made the difficult decision to not finish this...._

_April Fools! (Although probably the majority of you didn't believe it for a second!)_

_This chapter's a bit shorter than I would have liked, but the hospital scene was written of a whim, so I wasn't really expecting a whole lot from it. The funny (well it's not really funny but...) part about the scene was the fact that it actually was the perfect opportunity to set up something for a scene that will happen in around ten... fifteen chapters. I LOVE the last paragraph in this chapter though! I find putting in random metaphors fun! _

_Cider is actually a character based off the person who forced me to let Ayumi stab Gin's eye. I needed more FBI and BO members for the fight scene, so I'm basing them off people I know! Of course I let them choose their names of course, but the rest of it I base off their personality and appearance! _

_**Fan girl 666: **__Question! Just wondering... it what sense was it "mean"? I is confused =(_

_Disclaimer time!_

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!

_See you next week, and Happy Easter!!!_


	6. 5: A Year

**Chapter 5: A Year**

"_I don't mind waiting for people, because the longer you wait, when you do meet you'll be happier..."  
__-Mouri Ran ~Crossroads in the Ancient Capital~_

"Really Otou-san!" Ran said under her breath as she walked into the living room to turn off the television. She had been in the kitchen cooking supper when she'd noticed that Kogoro had fallen asleep in front of the TV in a drunken stupor.

Just as she was about to press the power button, the news came on. They were saying something about a traffic accident that had happened on the other side of the city.

But it wasn't the incident that grabbed Ran's attention. It was the date that was shown on the top right hand side of the screen. It was the same date on which, exactly one year earlier, Ran had won the city karate tournament. As promised, Shinichi had taken her to Tropical Land a few days later, and it had been wonderful.

Until the last few hours. Shinichi had had to solve a gruesome murder on the Mystery Coaster, the details of which had blended with so many other cases that she had trouble remembering it. What she remembered most was what had happened as she and Shinichi were just starting to leave the amusement park.

Something had caught his eye, and he'd left. She remembered him running down that alley. The soft padding of his shoes as they hit the pavement in quick succession. The sight of the shadows swallowing his retreating form. And that strange premonition that she would never see him again. Why, oh why, had she not chased after him?

_A year..._ she thought forlornly, _it's been nearly a _year_ since that day...and he still hasn't returned..._

Three. That was how many times she'd seen him since that day. And every time he left without even a hint of a goodbye. She always had to hear what Shinichi had said before he'd left from Conan. Always.

He would call every once in a while. But what good is a call if you can't see the person on the other end? Why had he been gone so long...?

A case. That was all he would ever tell her. There had once been a time when he'd ramble on about his cases until she begged him to stop. Now she wanted to beg him to tell her. Tell her _something_. He always seemed to imply that it was several different cases, and a new one would just happen to pop up as soon as the previous one was solved. But something in the back of her mind told her that there was simply one big case. And that it was putting Shinichi in terrible, terrible danger.

_So why can't he tell me?_

Ran was torn away from her thoughts as she noticed the door to the small house open, and Conan walked in, looking down solemnly.

"Welcome home, Conan-kun." She greeted him, "Is something wrong?"

He hadn't seemed to have seen her, and the moment he realized she was there his head snapped up and his expression had turned carefree. He was fast, but she hadn't missed it. When she'd spoken, Conan's face had borne a terrified expression for little more than a millisecond before turning to the way it was now.

_What about me could have scared him that much...?_ She pondered.

"N-Nothing, Ran-neechan. I was just thinking about a difficult question from school." He stuttered.

"What was the question? I might know the answer..."

The boy shook his head quickly from one side to the other. "That's okay. I want to try to figure it out myself."

"You were out for a while," she said, sensing that he wanted to change the subject, "Were you at Agasa-Hakase's?"

"Yeah. I was playing a new game he made with Haibara."

_Her sir name...Why does he always talk about her so formally? They're just kids after all, and they're good friends. Now that I think about it, the other boys seem to do that as well... _Ran looked away as her thoughts began to drift again. A new mood filled the air. A depressed one, as if Conan was also feeling upset about something. But it seemed impossible to her that such a usually joyous child could feel such emotional pain.

As she noticed the new atmosphere, she looked up to see Conan staring at the television screen where the date was still displayed. "It's been almost a year, hasn't it?" he asked rhetorically, not looking away from the screen where the news casters had changed to talking about some reported gunshots a few miles from the Mouri Detective Agency. The police had found blood in the alley the shots were suspected to have originated from, but so far, no bodies had been found.

"Since we met, I mean..." He turned towards her and smiled brightly, but there was a bitterness behind it that she couldn't quite name.

"Yeah, I was just thinking about that a little while ago." She remembered that too. It had been on that same day that Shinichi had disappeared. She tried and failed several times to call him at home, and had run through the pouring rain to reach his house. But it wasn't Shinichi she'd found when she finally reached it. It was Conan.

Agasa-Hakase had been there also. He'd told her that Conan's parents had been in an accident, and he had asked her if she and her father would be able to look after Conan for awhile.

But she'd never expected "awhile" to turn into a year.

She wasn't complaining though. Shinichi had been gone for the same amount of time that Conan had been there. Despite the tantei-otaku's MIA status, because Conan was there Ran was always smiling. As if his being there somehow made it feel like Shinichi was closer then he would be otherwise.

Now, as she stared at the boy, she couldn't help but think that he looked so much like Shinichi. But that could be explained. Yukiko had said... what was it? Something along the lines of Conan being her uncle's brother's daughter's cousin's grandfather's nephew? She would never understand how the former actress could remember all of that.

"Well, I'm going to go start on dinner," she proclaimed, stepping towards the kitchen.

"Can I help you...?"

Ran whipped back to face Conan, wide-eyed. It was so unusual for him to ask to help her. Usually he would just sit on the couch and read until she called him and her father to the table. "Sure Conan-kun... That'd be great..."

The two began walking to the small kitchen, leaving Nemuri no Kogoro to himself.

* * *

"I'm going to go read in my room," Shinichi announced, standing up from his seat at the table. He'd struggled through his supper, doing his best to keep a smile on his face and the mood light hearted.

Ambling towards the small room he and Kogoro shared, he barely heard Ran's reply. He gently shut the door behind him, then leaned against it, sliding to the floor. He just needed to think.

A year. It had really almost been a _year_. And still he hadn't managed to stop Them. Still he was stuck in this damn body.

And still the Organization was affecting his life. Making it impossible for him to live normally. They'd killed Ayumi. And for no reason other than just being there.

_Anything that gets in Their way, They _destroy.

Haibara's words from the incident with Pisco that time at the Haido City Hotel came back to him. She'd been right, that was for sure.

He knew that now. They had killed a seven year old girl without a second thought. Anyone who stood the slightest chance of revealing Their existence, no matter how small that chance was, they would kill. And, under regular circumstance, no one they were targeting had any luck of surviving.

And they would kill countless other people, whether they were involved or not, to get to that person.

The realization struck him like a wrecking ball. He'd always known it, but he'd blocked it from his mind with all the strength he had. But after today's incident, the wall he'd worked so hard to create had come crashing down.

If the Organization learned that Kudou Shinichi lived, if he was spotted during one of the rare instances where he was himself, or if Vermouth let it slip, They would kill anyone he knew if it meant They could get to him. Even... no, _especially_ Ran.

Yes, Ran would likely be one of their first targets. As his classmates used to repeatedly make a point of, it was obvious to anyone just how much he and Ran cared for one another. More than anything else in the world. If the Organization were to watch him for even a day, that would be more than clear to them, too.

He had to distance himself from her. If not as Conan, than as Shinichi. It would be the easiest way to start, considering that Ran only heard from him maybe a few times a month. The frequency of their conversing had increased since he'd given her his cell phone number, but it still wasn't very numerous.

Shinichi could only think of one way to completely distance himself from her. And it was the last thing he wanted to do. Even just the thought of having to go through with it threatened to claw his heart out of his chest. But it was the only way that he might be able to save her.

He had made up his mind.

* * *

_Yay! Another chapter done! Plus I finally got over my writers block and finished chapter 9! Personally, I think this is where my writing starts getting better; I was looking over the first couple chapters compared to ones like chapter 8, and I have one word: fudge. (I'm kinda known for being hard on myself...) _

_Prepare yourselves fangirls! (or fanboys. I won't be biased.) The next chapter features Heiji! *glomp!*_

_Also, for the record, keep your eye out for foreshadowing. I LOVE including it, and I'm pretty sure there's some in every chapter so far! Hehehe! _

_Also on Friday... JAPANESE FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENTS!!! At my sisters school (she's in high school, I'm in junior high) every 3 years they do a exchange program with some schools in Japan, so two of them are going to be staying at my house! (I'm WAY too excited about this...) Also, apparently the ones staying at my house like manga! ...I wonder if they've read DC... *begins evil plotting...* Muahahahaha!_

_**Gundamzbd36: **__you'll have to wait and see, just like everyone else. =)_

_And lastly, the oh-so-annoying disclaimer:_

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!

_Bye-bye!_


	7. 6: Theoretical Suicide

**Chapter 6: Theoretical Suicide**

"_I'm sick of this place. I wish I could just _vanish_ right now...though that's bound to happen sooner or later."  
__-Haibara Ai ~The Street Corner of Betrayal~_

Mitsuhiko looked over to Ayumi's seat as he walked into the classroom. _She's not here yet...?_ He thought, noting that the desk was empty, _Well, I suppose I _am_ here relatively early..._ That was probably all it was. It would still be about a half hour until school started after all.

He'd purposely come to class ahead of time that morning. The day before he'd heard his mother talking on the phone with Ayumi's mom. Apparently Ayumi hadn't come home after school. He heard his mother suggest that Ms. Yoshida try calling Genta's house before the two ended the call. Because of that, he'd barely been able to sleep last night.

_I'm sure she and Genta-kun just got slowed down by food or she went to his house and simply forgot to call her Oka-san,_ he reasoned. _It's not like she would run away or anything..._

A few minutes later, Genta walked through the door yawning. "You're here early!" Mitsuhiko remarked. Usually the lazy boy was one of the last ones to class.

"Speak for yourself..." Genta grumbled collapsing into his desk and laying his head on the wood. "I couldn't sleep last night. Oka-san said Ayumi didn't get home last night."

"_Eh_? You mean she wasn't with you?" Mitsuhiko exclaimed, starting to panic.

"If she was would I have said that...?" Genta said, trying to fall asleep, "We split up about ten blocks from her house... A new kabob stand just opened yesterday and we passed it on the way home..."

"No more explanation needed..." Mitsuhiko moaned, slouching into his own desk. "I hope she's okay. I wonder what happened to her."

"All we know is that she's missing."

Mitsuhiko looked up to see Conan walking into the room, followed by Haibara. He noted that Conan, like Genta, seemed tired. He had large bags under his eyes that made it appear as if he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

"Are you serious?" Mitsuhiko exclaimed as Genta raised his head to blink tiredly at Conan.

"Of course he is. This isn't the kind of thing that people joke about." Haibara said with just a tiny bit more emotion than was usual for her. This spiked Mitsuhiko interest.

"Why would you think she's missing?" asked Genta, not really paying attention.

"We ran into Megure-keibu and Takagi-keiji yesterday." Conan explained, his eyes clouding over as he remembered something.

"You _what_? You mean Yoshida-san called the _police_?" yelled Mitsuhiko.

Just then, the teacher, Kobayashi, walked in, and all four heads turned to look at her, the conversation coming to an abrupt halt.

"You kids are certainly here early!" she remarked walking over to her desk at the front of the room.

"We'll investigate this after school," Mitsuhiko proclaimed, whipping back around to face the rest of the Shounan Tantei-Dan who were present.

"Can't. I'm going with Mouri-ojisan and Ran-neechan to investigate a kidnapping case," Conan declared.

"And I'm taking Agasa-Hakase to the gym today. Simply trying to get him to diet isn't working." Haibara clarified.

"Fine! Genta-kun, meet me here after school and we'll go by ourselves!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Mitsuhiko noticed a look of panic cross Conan's face. "I wouldn't so that, if I were you," the spectacled boy blurted out, "I heard on the news that there were some shootings around this area the other day."

"Well then, what are we going to do?" Mitsuhiko fretted. Instead of answering, Conan and Haibara simply looked away, and Genta snored loudly from his desk.

* * *

Shiho's mind began to wander as Kobayashi started the day's lesson. It wasn't as if she really needed to pay attention anyway. After all, she knew more than this teacher would ever believe. And she had more important things to worry about.

The run in with that Black Organization member had shook her entire view of her and Kudou's safety. Most likely a high ranked member, probably Gin, had been informed about the fact that Sherry had been sighted. And that she was the size of a seven year old.

Shiho had to find the antidote to the Apotoxin. And fast.

She still had no idea how she'd managed to get the poison to cause excessive apoptosis. The only way she'd thought of doing it was to examine a human brain to figure out what exactly caused the phenomenon to happen. Then, after that, she would have to figure out how to increase that signal so that it would kill all the cells in a person's body almost simultaneously, as well as how to turn that signal into a pill...

Plus there was the whole increased telomerase activity to worry about, and why the drug had caused the two teenagers to shrink.

All in all, it seemed like a hopeless situation.

But it was one that Shiho was determined to solve.

* * *

Shinichi was dreading going back to the detective agency. Time seemed to be his enemy that day, as school had passed in a blur, making way for the slow walk home. Haibara seemed to sense his reluctance, but she was too deep in thought to say anything. According to Agasa-Hakase, she'd been up for all of last night doing work in the lab.

It was his own fault that he was dismayed about returning. He'd made the decision, and he was the one who would have to suffer the consequences. No matter how much he wanted not to.

He'd decided when he was going to put the plan in motion. In one week. That was it. Any less, and the plan wouldn't work. Anymore, and he'd end up putting it off forever.

_But I have to do it. If I don't, she could be killed, _he despaired. _If I don't do this, everything I care about will be gone._

* * *

Heiji jumped a foot in the air as his cell phone's ringer went off. He had just gotten home after leaving school and no sooner had he settled into a good Ellery Queen novel that he hadn't read in awhile did his phone go off.

"Wadda ya want?" he bellowed, answering the call.

"It's me."

Heiji paused. Kudou. But his tone indicated that he was in a major no-nonsense mood.

"What's up?" he replied, a tiny bit more serious than usual.

"I need you to kill me."

"You _**WHAT**_?" Heiji nearly fell off the couch he was laying on, fumbling to catch the phone. "Okay, either that Ahotoxin stuff has started to seriously mess with yer head or yer leaving somethin' out!"

"Didn't I tell you before that it's _Apo_toxin? And yeah, I worded that wrong. Basically, I need you to tell Ran that I, as in Kudou Shinichi, am dead."

"'Kay, _why_?"

"Because the Black Organization killed Ayumi yesterday."

"...S'it weird that I'm not seein' the connection here? And are ya sure _They_ were the ones who did it?"

"Yeah, I am. I heard it through the tantei badge. Afterwards Haibara and I went to where it happened and got blood samples. It was definitely hers."

"Still not seein' the connection."

"We had to go to the hospital so that Haibara could get Ayumi's files off the computer; otherwise we wouldn't be able to tell if it was really hers. And when we were there, she ran into one of Them."

Heiji was silent for a moment. "..._No_ connection..."

"Barro! They recognized her! And we know now just what lengths They will go to in order to get rid of people they consider even a tiny threat! They're closer now than They ever were to learning that I'm alive, and when They do, They'll kill anyone close to me if that's what it takes to shut me up. And, being the most important person in my life, Ran will be Their first target."

"What? So ya don't care if They kill me?" joked Heiji. He could practically _hear_ Kudou rolling his eyes on the other end of the phone.

"So anyways, I unfortunately called Ran as myself a few days ago. What I want you to do is in one week call her cell phone and tell her that I've been found dead." The meitantei of the east then began relaying the girl's phone number as Heiji scrambled to find a pen.

"Got cha. But what if she asks fer someone else to confirm it?"

"I called Agasa-Hakase on my way to school this morning. He's going to make a spare bowtie. I'll send it to you by express mail, so you should get it in a few days. Just make sure you know what settings to use for different people's voices."

"Can do. Just one more thing: what should I tell 'er?"

"I trust you'll be able to think up something. You're almost as smart as I am, after all. But try to keep it _realistic_."

"Oi! Wadda ya mean by '_almost_'?" Heiji yelled, only to find the line dead. The brat must've purposely done that to bug him... or maybe Ran had walked in.

Ran. What would her reaction be to hearing about Kudou's death...?

_Are ya sure this is the right thing ta do, Kudou?_

_

* * *

_

_Sorry that this is a week late; I recently started reading/watching Vampire Knight and I completely forgot about editing this... But it won't happen again! ...I hope..._

_But keep reading! I posted chapter 7 as well this week in an attempt to make up for last week!_

_(BTW, does Heiji call Ran Ran or Mouri...? I couldn't figure it out...)_

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!


	8. 7: Sweet Nightmares

**Chapter 7: Sweet Nightmares**

"_That dream I had was right. They could be in this very town, monitoring us..."  
__-Haibara Ai ~The Street Corner of Betrayal~_

"**KYAAAA!!**" Ran's scream merged with others as the jet coaster plummeted down the sheer drop, and began speeding towards the tunnel. She glued her eyes shut as she caught a glimpse of some of the grotesque decorations that lined the cavern's walls. She'd _never_ liked monsters.

But as her eyes shut and another of her screams rang out, the hand that she'd grasped the moment before the coaster had dived downward suddenly turned to hold her own.

Her eyes flew open, her head whipping to her left to look at a smiling face. The face of the person holding her hand.

Shinichi.

"Don't be scared," he commanded caringly. "Nothing will hurt you as long as I'm here."

Her eyes widened in awe, but all the same, she smiled. The ride came to a halt at the terminal and Ran felt the safety bar release. After pushing it over her head, she stepped onto the platform, still staring at Shinichi.

She'd seen him nearly every day since they were old enough to walk, so why did she feel as if she hadn't seen him in months?

As he followed her off the coaster, a strange desire suddenly filled her mind. The moment Shinichi was beside her, she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his chest and holding on as tight as she could. She was surprised, but not upset in the least, as she felt his arms enclose around her.

"Hey? What's the hug for?" he asked, smiling while his face turned red.

"Just for being you." She replied, letting him go. She didn't know where the words came from. One moment she was staring at his blushing cheeks, then the next thing she knew, the words were springing to her lips.

The sun was starting to set. Soon Tropical Land would be closing for the day.

"Why don't we ride the Ferris wheel once before we leave?"Shinichi suggested. Ran had to agree. The Ferris wheel had always been one of her favourite rides, ever since she had first ridden one in first grade.

When they got to the end of the line, she was surprised when he started a conversation about something _other_ than mysteries. They couldn't have been waiting for more than fifteen minutes, but by the time the two of them were getting on the ride, the first stars were already beginning to appear. As the wheel turned its first, slow rotation, a gentle rain began to fall, and a full moon shone through a gap in the clouds.

"Wow. It sure is beautiful tonight." Shinichi commented, looking up at the darkening sky as they began to go around again. "But this night is nothing compared to you..." He turned his head slightly to smirk at her, and she drew in a sharp breath.

"You know, I've actually been looking for an excuse to bring you here for awhile," he continued, his face reddening like it had earlier that day, right before they'd gotten on the coaster. "I...I've been wondering if you'd ever consider...being _more_ than just friends..." He looked away, his face darkening ever more.

Ran was shocked. She'd been sure that she had lost out on her chance at ever getting out of the friend zone when she'd chickened out earlier on the Mystery Coaster. But here was opportunity, once again knocking at her door.

Smiling softly, she reached her hand over to gently turn his head back around. This time it was his turn for his eyes to widen. As response, she closed her own and began to slowly lean towards him. In the distance, she could just make out the sound of that nights fireworks going off, as her and Shinichi's car of the Ferris wheel reached the top once again.

"_**RAN!**_"

Her eyes flew open at the sound of her name. But instead of finding Shinichi in front of her, she found her dark, empty room. She had just been having a dream. A wonderful, glorious dream, but it was still nothing but an imagined world.

She lay in her bed for a minute. _Where did that scream come from...? _She wasn't sure whether it had been a part of her dream or the real world.

She got her answer when another shriek tore through the small house, coming from the next room.

* * *

Fire burned in his chest and licked its way up his throat. He had been running at a flat out sprint ever since he'd left... but where had he started? The details melted away, replaced by panic.

As he neared his old house, the word "Kudou" glistening under the moonlight as a soft rain fell, he began to tear faster across the pavement, faster than he'd believed to be humanly possible. He flung the door aside, not bothering to kick off his shoes as he rushed into the library.

He froze when he saw who was there.

Ran.

There she was, knelt on the floor, her hands tied behind her back. And a berretta pressed to her temple. A berretta held by _him_.

Gin.

The long haired man let a malevolent smile spread upon his ashen face as he noted Shinichi's presence.

"Well isn't that nice? It would seem my bait worked better than expected."

Shinichi tensed at the sound of the evil voice. "Let her go. I'm the one you want. She has _nothing_ to do with this," he proclaimed, attempting to keep his voice steady.

"It's just the opposite. She became involved when you didn't die that day." He heard Ran whimper as Gin loaded a bullet into the gun's chamber.

"Say goodbye to your little girlfriend, meitantei." Ran's body fell to the floor as the gunshot resonated through the hall.

"_**RAN!**_" Shinichi screamed, running towards her still form. He fell to his knees as he reached her. In front of him, her lifeless face paled under the silver moonbeams that filtered through the skylight above them, dark blood pooling around her head.

He barely noticed as the gun's barrel was placed against the back of his own head. "This time, I'll make sure you don't live." The trigger was pulled.

Shinichi shot bolt upright in his bed, letting out a scream. In the bed beside his, Kogoro grunted and rolled over.

A dream. It had just been a dream.

Just then, Ran peeked her head through the door. "Conan-kun? Is something wrong? I heard screaming."

Although he knew perfectly well that it had been only a figment of his imagination, he still breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Ran there. _Alive_. "I'm fine Ran-neechan. I... I just had a nightmare.

Ran sighed as well, "That must have been a pretty bad dream if it had you screaming! What was is about...?"

"I... don't remember." But he did. Every detail of the dream was burned into his mind. It had been so realistic; he could almost have sworn that it had been reality.

But this nightmare had only farther proved his point. So long as Ran knew that Shinichi was alive, They would go after her. He had to cut the scarlet thread that connected her and the Organization. He had to convince her that he was dead.

He was more sure now than ever that this was the only way to save her.

* * *

Shiho's eyelids slid open, staring out at the dark room. With a glance to her left, she confirmed that Agasa-Hakase was asleep, still snoring soundly in his bed. She turned her gaze to read the clock: 2:17. Good. Hakase usually slept in until 8:45. That would give her at least six and a half hours to herself.

Noiselessly, she slid out of her bed and crept toward the lab. Feeling her way down the narrow staircase, she located the doorknob and carefully opened the door to the small room.

Closing the door gently behind her, she started up the computer. As the machine hummed to life, she reached into her pocket, pulling out the USB from the hospital. She hadn't informed Kudou about the _main_ reason she wanted the files...

She wanted to learn Gin's true identity.

As the USB completed uploading, she began to sift through the seemingly endless files. She started with the only evidence she knew for sure: His blood type. Searching through the documents, she sorted them into two categories. The first was the people with different blood types than that which she'd collected in the alley. The second was the ones that did.

But even after doing this, there were still several hundred applicants left to consider. This was probably a waste of time anyways. Really, why would Gin have even gone to that particular hospital when there were so many other ones? But she still felt the need to try. There was still that one in ten thousand chance that it would work. And she seemed to have a talent for being that one.

The next thing to check was age. She didn't know his exact age, but she assumed he had to be somewhere between twenty-five and forty. She rearranged the group of files that fit in with his blood type, this time differentiating between whether they would fit into that age category. Obviously Gin couldn't be a five year old kid or a seventy year old grandfather.

After doing this, as well as eliminating the files belonging to women, Shiho was left with just over a hundred candidates. Yawning, she glanced at the clock in the corner of the computer screen. 5:54. Agasa-Hakase would be waking up soon. She'd have to wait until tomorrow to do a more thorough check of the remaining people.

But she was determined to figure it out eventually.

* * *

_As I said in my blab last chapter, _really_ sorry about there being no chapter last week. But never fear! It, as well as this chapter, are now out!  
__My reasons for chapter 6 being late:  
__- I had several important tests over the last week.  
__- I've been obsessed with reading and watching Vampire Knight.  
__- I found The Secret Birth of Kaitou Kid on the internet (SQEE!).  
__- I'm lazy._

_On Monday, I really messed up my knee. Basically, there's what we call the underpass near my school, so at lunch me and my friends were trying to climb up this slanted part of concrete to did there like we did last year (since it's FINALLY warm) and, because I was in flats that have no grip whatsoever, I ended up slipping down on my knee. Two gashes in my left knee, plus scrapes on my right knee and hand. Ouch._

_Back on topic... As you may have noticed, I've been using less Romanized Japanese in recent chapters. This is because it takes a bit more time to add in the Japanese, since I like to check translators so that I know it's correct. The other reason is that I was rereading the released chapters once again (cause I'm just that cool) and I was finding that the Japanese made some of it sound awkward and forced. I'll probably still have a word once in a while, as well as I'm still going to use the honorific's (kun, chan, neechan, etc.). _

_On another note, I remember putting at least three references in this chapter. Can you find them all...?_

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!


	9. 8: The Passage of Time

**Chapter 8: The Passage of Time**

"_You can't complain about time going by. If anyone tries to change it, life will punish them."  
__-Haibara Ai ~The Eye from Faraway~_

Shinichi sighed as the alarm on his watch went off. Seven o'clock. Time to start getting ready for school.

He hadn't managed to get back to sleep after that dream. Every time he closed his eyes, he would see that image of Ran's pale, lifeless face bathed in moonlight. Something he hoped to never have to see in the real world.

But her survival was proven once again as he heard her singing melodiously along to a song playing on the radio from the kitchen. He just laid there for a few minutes, basking in the perfection the moment brought with it. Outside the window, he could see fresh snow drifting down from the heavens, beautiful and cold.

Like Ran had been in his dream.

Shaking the thought from his head, he stood up and began walking towards the kitchen. Just as he was about to enter, he paused. A few meters in front of him, Ran was preparing breakfast, but just as he was about to enter, the song on the radio changed. As he watched, she not only sang in tune with it like she had with the others, but also began to dance.

Shinichi just stood there for a second, leaning his back against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. He smiled sadly, wondering how long it would be until he saw this sight again after Ran received Hattori's call in a few days' time.

* * *

Ran spun as her favourite part of the chorus came on, only to freeze after only turning halfway. Someone was standing in the doorway, watching her with a smirk on his face. For a second she'd thought it was Shinichi.

But no, the person was too short to be him. It was only Conan. _My mind must still be playing tricks on me since that dream last night, _she reasoned.

"Good morning, Conan-kun," greeted him warmly, reaching across the counter to turn off the radio.

"You seemed to be having fun!" Conan enthused. Her cheeks reddened slightly at the thought of him seeing her acting like a fool.

"Oh? You wanna dance?" She joked, to which she got a brisk shake of the head in response. "So did you remember what your dream last night was about? You seemed pretty scared..." She was remembering the screams that had shook her from her own dream. Conan was the kind of person who didn't even pale at the sight of blood covered bodies when the two of them tagged along on her dad's cases. What could have scared him so much that he'd let out an audible shriek? And had she only been imagining that it had been her name that was the first cry?

When the words were spoken, she immediately wished she could take them back. This was because, when he heard them, Conan's eyes had narrowed sadly a tiny bit, betraying his feelings. "No... Don't worry... I'm sure it was nothing..."

But something about the way he said it told her that it _wasn't _nothing. And the way he'd said it seemed familiar somehow... but she couldn't quite place it...

"Everything's fine..." he added.

Those simple words were enough to open a floodgate, as the memories came pouring back...

* * *

_**Eleven Years Earlier: **_

"_Ran_? I'm sorry sweetie! Will you please come out?" Ran heard her mother beg from the opposite side of the door.

They'd been fighting again, Kogoro and Eri. Why did they always have to fight...? It had started when Kogoro had come back from a case he'd been working on down at the police station drunk. Eri had said something about infidelity, whatever that was. They'd gotten to shouting at each other like they'd been doing on almost a daily basis, but when Ran had pleaded for them to stop, Eri, without thinking, had yelled at the girl.

"Get away from me! What do you know about these things? Your Otou-san and I will probably get a divorce if things keep going like this! You being here isn't going to change a thing!"

For a seven year old, that was too much to bear. Bawling, Ran had dashed towards her room, slamming the door behind her as tears streamed down her cheeks. Her parents simply stared at her retreating form.

"_Now_ look what you've done!" Ran heard Kogoro yell.

"_Me_? It's because of _you_ that we're even having this fight, you drunkard!"

The fighting continued until Ran had cried herself to sleep. But even in her dreams, she couldn't escape the screams.

She didn't know how long she'd been sleeping there when a gentle knock on the door brought her back to reality. "_Ran_? I'm sorry sweetie! Will you please come out?"

Ran blinked the sleep away, trying to remember what had happened. Sudden tears stung at her eyes as she recalled the nights' earlier events. "Ran? Can I come in?"

She nodded before realizing that Eri couldn't see her. "Yeah," she croaked, her throat rough from the tears.

Eri gently slipped through the door and wandered over to sit beside Ran at the side of the bed. "I'm _so _sorry about earlier! I wasn't thinking clearly at the time... Can you ever forgive me...?" she pleaded to her daughter.

Instead of answering, Ran simply replied, "When will you and Otou-san stop fighting?" As she said the words, a tear escaped her swollen eyes, running down her cheek.

"Soon. The fighting will stop soon..." her mother replied, wiping the tear away with her thumb. "Don't worry. Everything's fine..."

* * *

_**Nine Months Earlier: **_

"If you want to use the notebook I used during your absence..." Ran stated bluntly. She was at the Central Tokyo Tower's Sightseeing Restaurant with Shinichi. That's right, Shinichi. He was back.

She hoped...

"What?" he asked, perplexed.

"Wasn't that what you wanted to ask? That's what I thought so I copied the pages and brought them."

"Ah, no. That's exactly it! It was hard for me to ask!" he laughed, scratching his head.

"I knew it!"

Suddenly he jerked forward so that his face was less than a foot away from hers, looking annoyed. "You should know that's not it!" She could feel his breath on her visage as he said the words, making her nervous.

"What...?"

"I invited you to dinner... because I have something to tell you. And that...that is..." he stuttered, not making eye contact. Why? He had always been such a confident person; never the type who would hesitate in saying something. So why-?

"**KYAAAA**!" A scream resonated through the restaurant, seeming to come from the hallway. "Whose scream was that?" she exclaimed.

"No need to worry. I'm sure someone just saw a cockroach..." Shinichi reassured her.

Just then, a man standing near the door yelled, _"_Hey! Someone died in the elevator!"

"Were the police contacted?" cried someone else.

"I wanted to tell you..." Shinichi went on.

"He was shot! The Company President was shot in the head!" another person proclaimed.

"I wanted to say that..."

"I'm not going to force you to stay."

"What...?" Shinichi stared at Ran, looking surprised. She had to admit, she was a little surprised herself. But all the same, she continued, "You actually care very much about the murder. I won't runaway and hide like someone else did. You can go... Tantei-san."

The shocked look remained on his still face for a moment, then he grinned his signature grin, and proclaimed, "Sorry Ran! I'll be back soon! I promise!" With that he left, looking back over his shoulder as he waved.

_He looks just like he did that time..._ Ran thought, remembering Tropical Land. Just_ like it..._

"_I promise"... can I really have faith in those words? That day he disappeared, he said almost the same words... But yet this is only the second time I've seen him in what feels like forever... But he'll return, as soon as he solves this case! He said he had something important to tell me, so he has to come back... right...?_

She sat there for over an hour, staring out the window. Alone with her thoughts. She didn't worry for long about what Shinichi had wanted to tell her. After all he was coming back. He would tell her then.

Instead she remembered yesterday's events. It had seemed almost dreamlike, the way it had happened. It had been the climax of the school play she was starring in when crow feathers had begun drifting down. Moments later, the Black Knight had descended. After defeating Ran's "kidnappers", he had embraced her tightly. That wasn't in the script...

When she'd looked over to Sonoko, who was filling the part of the director, for some explanation, she'd just seen the sign saying "just go with it!" Ran had continued saying her lines, but still the knight remained silent. "If you still remember our childhood promise," she'd recited, "Then seal it with a kiss upon my lips..."

As the two of them leaned towards each other, there was a scream. Someone was dead. Typical.

During the investigation, Shinichi had appeared. Only, as Kazuha had made a point of, "Shinichi" was in fact Hattori wearing a _very_ bad disguise. It wasn't until the case was solved that the impossible had happened.

Just as it looked like the death was going to be ruled a suicide, the Black Knight had stepped forward. While proclaiming the first words she'd heard him say that day, he'd removed the helmet that had been hiding his face, revealing his true identity.

Shinichi.

_That's not possible... _She had thought, _Because Shinichi is... Shinichi is... _She turned her head to glance behind herself at Conan, who, as it turned out, had been watching her. She'd been sure that Conan was Shinichi! They even had the same blood type! She'd proven that earlier in the month when Conan had gotten shot and she'd donated her blood to save him! And yet, both Shinichi and Conan were in the same room. Had she been wrong? The evidence was pointing towards that, but that little voice in her head was telling her differently.

After he'd solved the murder, revealing the killer to be his co-worker who'd been sitting three seats down from him, Shinichi had started saying something to Hattori. But just as he finished the sentence, he'd collapsed against the folding chairs.

Had that been steam coming off his body? No, it couldn't have been. As Shinichi collapsed, Ran had run towards him, pleading for him to tell her that he was alright.

She had helped Dr. Araide to carry Shinichi into the nurse's office, where they'd laid him in a bed. After a few minutes, as some other students, Hattori and Kazuha included, had gathered around the cot, Shinichi had slowly opened his eyes to stare up at Ran's pale face.

Oddly, he'd stared at his hands for a moment once he'd fully awakened, as if he expected to see something different there. And the next day, he'd still been there. When they'd arrived at school, whilst trying to ignore the obvious eavesdropping going on, he'd asked her to come to the restaurant that night. And there she was.

Since then, Conan had been acting a bit different. More... _mature_. _Yes, that's the word for it..._ Ran thought glancing around the room.

So many questions were still left unanswered. Of course, there were the usual questions that Shinichi never answered. Where have you been? When are you coming back? But now she had more to add to that list. Why hadn't Shinichi been going with the script during the play? She assumed it was just because he didn't know it, but, up until the hug, the stage cues had been spot on. Why had he returned so suddenly? Did Dr. Araide know about Shinichi taking the role beforehand, or had it been a last minute thing? Why _had_ he hugged her? And most pressing of all, if the murder hadn't gotten in the way, would Shinichi have really kissed her...?

But the last question was one that she didn't intend on ever voicing. Too embarrassing.

_What is it? The thing Shinichi wanted to tell me... What could it be? "Long time no see. How come you've gotten fatter?" That could be it. My clothes have gotten tighter around the waist. But why would he ask me to dinner to tell me _that_?_

As her mind started to drift back to the present, a waitress walked over to the table Ran was sitting at. "Sorry for the wait," the woman said, about to put the ice cream Ran had ordered on the table.

"Ah! Please don't serve dessert until my friend comes back! He ran out after he heard a scream! But he's a detective, so he should be able to take care of it quickly!"

"Okay..." replied the waitress, stifling a laugh.

"What?"

"Ah! I'm sorry, but you two are so much like the couple my manager talked about. They came here twenty years ago and were also at this table then. That man solved a case and loudly said it when he got back. You'd better be prepared!"

"Said what?"

"A marriage proposal!" the woman exclaimed, blushing excitedly.

_WHAT?_

"Good luck!"

Ran stared at the retreating server, shocked. A _proposal_? That was crazy! They were only in high school! It wasn't like they could just get _engaged_! What would people at school think? And she didn't even want to _begin _to imagine Sonoko's reaction! Besides, she didn't even know whether or not he felt that way about her...

A little while later, the waitress returned, saying that the case had apparently been solved. But a few moments later, it wasn't Shinichi who'd returned.

"Co-Conan-kun?" Shell shocked, she gawked at the out-of-breath boy standing at the side of the table.

"This is the credit card," he explained, handing it to her. "Shinichi-niichan told me to give it to you... Oji-san told me to check up on you, but I saw Shinichi-niichan."

"Otou-san is here...?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah. He's in the parking lot."

"Where's Shinichi then?"

"Uh, he's... Someone called him on his cell phone. He said there's a problem with the case from before, and he ran off... He's so stupid..."

So that was it, huh? Shinichi had left. Again. And he hadn't even said goodbye. _Again_. How many times would he vanish, leaving her behind to wonder what he was doing? Was he okay? When would he return? And, when he did, would he _stay_?

"Yeah... I've been stood up again..."

"Ra-Ran-neechan? Shinichi-niichan said-"

"Don't" With the thoughts swimming through her head, it took her a few seconds to realize that she was crying. "I don't want to hear it!" she yelled, covering her ears. "I don't want to hear any excuses!"

For a moment there was silence. Then...

"He'll come back one day." Conan proclaimed. Ran had nearly forgotten he was there. "Even if he's going to die, he'll come back. He wanted me to tell you to wait for him, no matter what. So... So don't worry... everything's fine."

* * *

Ran nearly gasped at the memories. Nearly forgotten, and yet she remembered them now as if they'd happened only the day before. How could she have not remembered those important times...? But she wouldn't forget them again. Especially the more recent of the two...

She looked back at Conan, who was staring at her quizzically. "Is something wrong?" the boy asked.

"No! No, of course not!" She burst, maybe a little too quickly. Conan certainly didn't look convinced. "Why don't you go read while I finish making your breakfast?"

She let a sigh escape as he, glancing back with a strangely knowing look, walked into the other room. He almost appeared to be _much _older than seven years old.

* * *

_My longest chapter yet! Sorry about going a bit OOC at the beginning of Ran's part... I needed fillers! Honestly, my need for fillers has been the reason for chapters 5, 7, 8, 9, a fair bit of chapter 6, and chapter 4 (as well as the end of chapter 3) started out as a filler, but then I figured out a way to incorporate them into the plot! They're a lot harder to come up with than you'd think... I am trying to find a way to tie them in though..._

_Actually though, if I was only writing the important scenes I'd be almost done this by now... okay that may be exaggerating a bit, but you get the idea! Luckily chapter 10 is entirely plot (though I can't say the same about chapter 9...) and I'm only just now working on chapter 11, but so far it's been all plot. _

_With the flashbacks in this chapter, like I said, it was for the sake of fillers! I needed something to fill out the time frame, and this is what I came up with... It's sad, I know... But I figured, "hey, Ran's constantly having flashbacks! I should use that!" Really how many has she had...? Golden Apple, Shinichi's First Case, um... I can't think of any more, but I'm sure they're there! Ooo! Movies 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12! Sure technically they're not canon, but I'm still counting them! _

_Also, with the second flashback in this, yes, yes, I know that the case is canon! I needed a second flashback with Shinichi in it and couldn't think of anything... so... CHEAT! The script for that was taken from the copy of the original chapter on One Manga, which isn't by DCTP so it might not be exactly right... but close enough!_

_Moving on to something less on topic... I HATE CASE CLOSED!!! To clarify, by Case Closed, I mean the Viz Media publication of the books. THE SCRIPT!!! Usually it doesn't bug me extremely (since I originally read the Case Closed publication until volume 26 when I found One Manga) except for certain lines. An example of this would be in the Desperate Revival arc (coincidence?). In one panel when Shinichi is Shinichi in the original he accidently calls Ran Ran-neechan ("Wait, Ran-neechan!"). In the Case Closed publication, as they don't use honorific's, this is changed to "Wait Rachel! Hold my hand when we're crossing the street!" Not horrible all things considered, but it still bugs me a little. _

_However, on Monday my hold for volume 34 (aka the newest one) came in. Every case in this volume has plot importance. First is the ending for The Meaning of X, then English Teacher vs. Detective of the West, Hooligan's Labyrinth, Déjà Vu in the Rain, and finally it ends with the first Golden Apple chapter. This volume also includes a fair number of English lines, plus Golden Apple is my second favourite case, and I have all my favourite lines memorized. So I'm reading Meaning of X and I come to Vermouth's lines (which I have mostly memorized). They changed a few words and rephrased a few sentences. Okay... not the end of the world... I still have lots of good lines left. Next is English Teacher vs. Detective of the West. At the line where Heiji is supposed to say "Ahotoxin" he instead says "Appletoxin". *twitch* It's just one word... They probably just changed it because it was a Japanese pun... Next is the part where Heiji speaks in English, a part that I memorized after hearing it in the anime. *clenches fist* They just rephrased it.... nothing wrong with that...Hooligan's Labyrinth was done fine. Déjà Vu in the rain, nothing really stood out. Golden Apple. Ho! Golden, Apple. DIE TRANSLATORS!!! _

_I know most people aren't really bothered by things like this, but... just... GAH!_

_Next topic: On Sunday night, I went slightly crazier than I already am... I was listening to this radio station we get in my city which plays Japanese music for one hour a week. I've only missed one week since my friend told me about it! One of the reasons I love the channel is because the last song they play is ALWAYS a DC ending or opening theme (this week was Hello Mr. My Yesterday!)! So I was listening to the top ten countdown and their playing #4 when I think "Hey, that sounds familiar!" I was the theme for Lost Ship in the Sky!!! And because of that song, the announcer said Meitantei Conan (twice!), Lost Ship in the Sky (in both English AND Japanese) and... KAITOU KID!!!!!!!! I literally fangirl squealed for a half hour after that! Kaitou Kiddo-sama...~! 3 *faint* _

_...I'm going to stop now before I go any more insane..._

_By the way, I'm not sure if anyone's realized this yet, but on my profile there's a paragraph that I change every time I release a new chapter. In it is a bit of info about the next chapter (or chapters depending on the mood I'm in), as well as I post a sentence from the next chapter._

_**Hanyou Detective: **__Thanks! Now that I think about it, I remember seeing that a few weeks ago when I was rewatching movie 7!_

_**ChrissyViolet/fan girl 666/ x-streakz-X-the-X-werecat-x: **__Thanks you guys! I'm glad I'm able to get those kinds of reactions out of my readers! Plus those chapters were really fun to write, so I'm glad you guys like my ideas!_

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude! Desperate Revival arc script and plot line also © Aoyama Gosho.


	10. 9: The Investigation Begins

**Chapter 9: The Investigation Begins**

_"A secret makes a woman, woman."  
__ -Vermouth_

"See you later!" Shinichi called to Ran as he walked away from the Mouri Detective Agency.

"Bye Conan-kun! Have a good day!" she called back. But somehow, the smile on her face seemed forced. He wondered what she'd been thinking about that morning. He'd been talking to her when all of a sudden her eyes had clouded over and she hadn't responded when he'd said her name. _I just hope she wasn't worrying about me again..._

After he'd left the kitchen, it'd taken all of his free will to stop from calling Hattori. He didn't want Ran to cry. He'd already caused that to happen too many times... But he _had_ stopped himself. _It's for the best..._ he told himself for what felt like the millionth time that day.

As he passed Agasa's house, he was joined by Haibara. "Is something wrong? You look even more tired than you did yesterday," she pointed out, not really seeming to care.

"I called Hattori last night," Shinichi began. "I asked him to do me a favour." He was purposely trying to leave out details, not wanting to have her lecture him. He'd already been criticizing himself about it like mad. But even so, telling someone else about his situation didn't sound all that bad...

"And? What did you ask him to do?"

"I... I asked him to call Ran a few days from now... and tell her that Shinichi is dead..."

As the words escaped his lips, Haibara stopped walking to stare at him, wide-eyed. "_Please_, tell me you're kidding! Do you know what that might do to her?"

As a matter of fact, he did. He knew better than anyone. But he knew that saying the words out loud would break his resolve, so he told her what he'd been trying to convince himself of: "Whatever she does can't be worse than anything They would do to her if they find out that I'm alive. You said yourself that it probably will happen sooner rather than later, considering the past few days' events."

But he wasn't one hundred percent sure that that was true...

"Are you sure that this is really what you want to do, Kudou-kun?" Haibara asked, walking forward again.

_No..._ "Yeah... it is..." ..._it isn't...If I could, I'd whip out my phone right this second and call the whole thing off... but... _Yes: but. That was the thing holding this plan together. Yet it was also the thing threatening to tear it apart...

* * *

"So your husband hasn't called yet?"

"Sonoko! How many time s do I have to tell you, Shinichi is _not_ my husband!" Ran yelled at her nosey friend. "And no, as a matter of fact he hasn't..."

"I knew it! You're always so down when he hasn't called in a few days! Deduction Queen Sonoko strikes again!" the ever euphoric girl proclaimed.

"Am I really that predictable...?"

"Yup! But I know how you feel... it feels like _forever_ since I last say Makoto..." Ran let her mind wander as Sonoko got that look on her face that said she was off in Lala Land.

Sonoko just didn't get it... Although the person she loved would also disappear as Shinichi did, the former was around much more often than the latter. And even when Makoto wasn't around Sonoko talked to him on the phone nearly every day. That was something that Ran wished she could say.

Why hadn't he called...? He usually called every few days, or texted at the very least. So why had she been waiting for a week? Could something have happened to him? No, of course not! This was Shinichi she was talking about after all! He could get himself out of even the stickiest of situations, right? Right.

So what was going on...?

* * *

_What am I going to do? _Shinichi thought once again, trying to ignore the mind numbing banter that surrounded him. Lunch time had fallen upon Teitan Elementary, and every student was taking the chance to be able to talk without having a teacher yell at them to pay attention. Everyone that is, except for him.

He didn't have the slightest idea what lessons had been taught that morning. What did it really matter? He'd learned it all before. He wasn't in the mood to play "little kid" today.

"Conan-kun? Aren't you going to eat your lunch?" Shinichi looked over to see Mitsuhiko beside him.

"No... I'm not really very hungry right now," he explained.

Beside Mitsuhiko, Shinichi saw Genta's ears perk. "I can eat it if you're not going to!"

Shinichi pushed his food towards his friend, "Knock yourself out, big guy..." He hadn't even taken a bite out of it. He wanted to eat something made by Ran. Scratch that, he just wanted to be with her. To spend every waking moment with her. To absorb her happiness before he caused it to vanish into oblivion.

"So I think after school today we should investigate Ayumi-chan's disappearance." Mitsuhiko suddenly spoke up.

_Not good! I have to change the subject!_ Shinichi despaired. "S-So! Did you guys catch Kamen Yaiba last night?"

"You bet! Yaiba's fight against the Molation Man was awesome!" Shinichi relaxed a bit. He could always count on Genta to take the bait.

But unfortunately, Mitsuhiko wasn't so easily swayed.

"Pay attention Genta-kun!" Mitsuhiko commanded, "We should've done this yesterday! We're the Shounan Tantei-Dan, aren't we?"

"It doesn't look like we're going to be able to get out of it this time," Haibara whispered to Shinichi from where she was now standing behind him. "We should go with them, to make sure they don't go there."

Although it went unsaid, Shinichi instantly knew where she was talking about. The alley. "Yeah. I suppose that's true." He murmured back, then addressing the boys, "Haibara and I will come too."

Mitsuhiko's face instantly brightened, "We'll meet in the shoe room after school to discuss our plans then!"

* * *

"Where are we going first?" asked Genta excitedly later that day when he and his friends were gathered around in the shoe room.

"I think we should start by asking Yoshida-san. If Ayumi-chan is back she'd most likely be the first one to know," Mitsuhiko suggested.

To Genta's surprise, the always opinionated Conan was silent. _Maybe he's finally starting to accept the fact that I'm the official leader! _

Or maybe he agreed with what Mitsuhiko had said.

Either way, they set off for the Yoshida's house. It was unnerving. They hadn't walked this way together since Ayumi had disappeared two days ago. Had she been walking along here when whatever had happened that was the cause of her being missing? In the current situation anything seemed possible.

They were near Ayumi's apartment building, just about to pass an alley way that Ayumi and Genta had sometimes used to use as a shortcut. "Oi! If we go down the alley it'll save us time!" he suggested happily, beginning to run ahead of the group.

"Oi! Genta!" he heard Conan yell at him.

"Kojima-kun! Stop!" Haibara added.

But he wouldn't head their pleas. After all, he was there leader! But as he came to the mouth of the passage, he began to rethink whether or not he should have listened to the two.

"What are the police doing here?" He raised an eyebrow as he uttered the words, Mitsuhiko coming to a stop beside him.

"Keiji-san? Did something happen here?" spoke up his friend.

"Stay back kids! This isn't the kind of thing for people your age to see." called an officer walking towards the police tape separating Genta and his friends from the crime scene. "Wait, is that Conan-kun?"

"Hi again Takagi-keiji..." Conan replied sheepishly as he and Haibara reached the other two.

"What are you kids doing back here?" questioned Takagi.

"What do mean back?" Genta inquired quizzically, "We just decided to use this as a shortcut..."

"Well, I was actually talking about Conan-kun and Ai-chan. Megure-keibu and I ran into them here a few days ago."

"Oh really..." sneered Genta, looking suspiciously at the girl and boy standing behind him. The pair just looked away innocently.

"Anyway, you were wondering what happened here, right?" the officer spoke up, causing Genta to look back towards him. "On Monday afternoon some people apparently heard some gunshots from around here. A couple people even said they heard screaming."

Mitsuhiko craned his neck to get a better look at the alley. "So some people were killed...? That's blood, right?"

The statement caused an unsettling shiver down Genta's spine. _Murder...? It couldn't be...she...?_

"Well, we're not sure yet. We've found three different blood types around the alley and a couple bullet holes in the alley wall and ground, but no bodies. If someone, or _ones_, were killed, their bodies have been taken somewhere else."

Genta decided that this would probably be as good a time as any to state his theory when he said, "Oi oi... You guy don't think one of those people could've been Ayumi... do you...?"

"B-Barro!" Conan broke in. "What reason would someone have to randomly kill a little kid?"

But it was Takagi who answered. "Actually, there's a chance that that's what happened. According to Yoshida-san, it was around the time that Ayumi-chan usually gets home that she heard the gunshot. Plus Ayumi-chan hasn't been seen or heard from since."

The four of them were silent, but, out of the corner of his eye, Genta could swear that Haibara was giving Takagi one of her death glares.

* * *

_YAY! I finally got this to work! If your wondering why this is SO late, technology hates me. Especially Macs. But it's out now so no complaining! Also, now that I've got it working, I'll get chapter 10 edited and up ASAP. I really want to get as much as possible up within the next few days since I'm going to Europe at the beginning of next week for two weeks and there's a very good chance that I won't be able to get this new chapters out while I'm there. Thank you so much to all of you who were patient enough to deal with me and my extremely random A/Ns. _

_I was going to say something else...now what was it...? Oh yeah! Because of my hectic schedule, my entering 9th grade soon (YAY!), and just downright laziness, I'll no longer be using my "have a new chapter out every Wednesday" plan. Not that I followed it very well to begin with... _

_Finally, I released a one-shot a few days ago called Never Together. My computer still was at war with me at the time of it's release however, so I apologize wholeheartedly for the bazillion (omg! bazillion's a word!) spelling mistakes. Please check it out and review, as it's my first attempt at a one-shot!_

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!

_Ooo! Sorry! **One last thing!** This chapter officially marks the end of fillers! (I hope...)_


	11. 10: Dead Man Walking

**Chapter 10: Dead Man Walking **

_"A flower is weak and frail. If you try to cover it from the wind and the rain, it will die longing for the sun."__  
- Haibara Ai ~The Life of a Flower~_

Powering up the old computer, Shiho let out a tired sigh. It was early morning once again and once again she intended to look into Gin's true identity. She only had a hundred twenty-six people left to check. How long could it take...?

Her mind had no trouble doing the math as she breathed another sigh. She had some work to do.

_No time like the present..._

Slowly, as to not miss anyone, she began sifting through the files, reading over the information on the patients. There sure was a variety. Politicians, doctors, lawyers, CEO's, even a celebrity or two... the choices seemed endless.

But no matter how hard Shiho tried, she couldn't keep her thoughts strait. Her mind kept wandering to what Kudou had planned.

A plan that would be put into action very soon.

What she feared was what Ran's reaction would be. Kudou and Hattori were men. They didn't understand the strength that love could give women. A strength that could at times be downright scary. And a strength that, if pushed the wrong way, could very easily turn dangerous. Even for the holder.

Everyone on this planet is standing on a high wire. When one of us falls off, it causes those around them to teeter. And every once in a while, someone else is jostled enough that they soon follow suit.

* * *

The next few days seemed to fly past the empty pit that was Shinichi as the day of Hattori's call neared, and Friday night was upon him in the blink of an eye. Every night he had the same dream again, a different version of the same. A million questions swarmed his mind, his own personal hornets' nest.

But he couldn't allow himself to ponder upon even a single one.

It was nearing. That day where someone still living would have to perish. The day Ran would learn that the one she cared for most was dead. His new and unimproved D-Day.

The simple thought, in that moment, threatened to shatter him. In that instance, a civil war was ragging within him. One side was all for calling Hattori as soon as possible to call the whole ordeal off. The other was doing everything it could to just keep him silent and let what was destined to happen do just that.

He'd made his decision.

He pulled out his cell phone and called Hattori.

The final piece was about to be put on the board.

"Yeah?" Hattori answered after only two rings.

"I trust you know who this is?"

"Oh, hey Kudou. Why are ya callin'? I'm not supposed to tell Nee-chan fer another two days, right?"

"Change of plans. Do you have the bowtie?"

"Yeah, it got here this mornin'. What da ya mean by 'change a' plans'?"

"I want you to do it tomorrow. If I leave this any longer I'll end up backing out."

"Whoa! Hold it! _Tomorrow_? But isn't that-!"

"I know what it is! Just do it, okay? Please...!"

"...Fine... But I hope you know what this could do to her." Hattori agreed, seeming to be able to sense the desperation in Shinichi's voice.

After going over the plans again, the two of them hung up.

Shinichi leaned against the wall of the messy room he was in, removing his useless glasses. Tomorrow. How could he have forgotten? That day which was so important...? But it was too late. Everything was about to be set in motion. There was no time to discuss new tactics, the battle was about to commence.

* * *

_What _is_ it that he's talking about...? _Ran asked herself as she leaned against the door to Kogoro and Conan's shared room.

Dinner was ready, so, not wanting to wake up a drunken Kogoro sleeping on the couch, she'd gone straight to where Conan was instead of calling him like she usually did. She'd been about to knock on the door to tell him when she'd heard him talking to someone.

It was muffled, but by the sound of it he was on the phone. The conversation seemed strange though... Conan was speaking in a hushed, almost pleading, voice. A voice that was several octaves lower than it usually was. It seemed familiar though, like she'd heard it a long time ago...

Smiling secretively, she walked back towards the small kitchen. It really _was_ about time that her father got up...

* * *

"You're up early, Conan-kun," Ran pointed out as Shinichi walked into the small living room. The rising sun was just beginning to filter through the windows, casting long shadows across the floor.

"I couldn't sleep last night," he explained, not lying. He'd had the worst version of the nightmare yet. Acting tired, he walked over to the couch where he laid down and cracked open the copy of The Sign of Four that Ran had bought him a few weeks earlier, not really reading it.

Shinichi listened as she, seeming to accept his explanation, walked into the kitchen to begin preparing breakfast for the two of them.

_Just a little while longer..._

* * *

_7:46..._ Heiji read off the clock beside his bed. _She's prob'bly awake by now. I'm fairly sure Kudou said once that she's an early riser..._

He looked beside the clock, where there lay the bowtie and a list he'd made the night before of settings for possible voices he may need to mimic. Most likely, he would have to use at least one to trick her.

Tricking her. He felt dirty when he thought about it that way. Every time he'd seen her, the only times where she hadn't been bursting with positive energy was when they ran into a body. It felt wrong to be taking that ability away from her. To take away one of the things she cherished most in her life.

To take away her happiness.

_Couldn't Kudou've figured out a better plan...? _Heiji thought desperately._ Like 'e could've..._ But his mind was drawing a blank. Sure, there were plenty of other plans which could've been put to action, but the goal was to make Ran as safe as possible. And this was the best way to do that.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled his phone off the dresser and punched in Ran's number.

* * *

Ran paused in her cooking as she heard her cell phone ringing from inside her pocket. _Could it be Shinichi_...? she pondered, pulling it out. It was about time he called, not to mention that that day marked the one year anniversary of his disappearance.

But, as she flipped it open, she saw that the caller ID was flashing "Unknown Caller". Puzzled, Ran pressed it to her ear. "Moshi moshi?" she answered, resuming in her cooking as she began cutting up some of the food with a French knife.

"Hey Nee-chan, how've you been doin'?" Hattori...? What was he doing calling her? How had he even gotten her number?

But these questions were left unsaid. Instead, she simply replied, "Okay. What about you?"

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds. "I'm...not really sure..." Now that was odd. Hattori was _always_ happy, whether he was spending time with Kazuha or solving a murder.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, then second guessed herself. "I don't want to intrude or anything! You don't have to tell me if you don't want to..."

"No, the reason I called was so that I could tell you..."

Once again, there was silence from Hattori.

"Well? What did you want to tell me...?" she interjected.

"Y...yesterday... they found Kudou's body on the bank of the Kanzaki River... I'm really sorry but... he...he's dead..."

Ran's entire body stiffened and she barely noticed as the knife slipped through her fingers, cutting into her foot as in bounced off the linoleum. "This is a joke... right? You're joking! You have to be!" she said quietly, watching the blood dye her sock scarlet.

But it wasn't Hattori who answered. "I'm sorry, Ran-kun...but it's true..." Otaki confirmed.

"No..." Ran breathed, sinking to the floor as her legs gave out. "No!" she yelled, "You're lying! Shinichi can't be! He can't-!"

Otaki and Hattori were silent, as if to give her time to soak it in. After a few minutes of screaming, Ran finally calmed down enough to speak clearly. "H-how? How did he...he..." She couldn't say the word, but Hattori seemed to understand what she was trying to say.

"One shot to the heart. He most likely never even realized it happened..." he explained forlornly.

"Oh, thank God!" Ran burst. She'd hated the idea of Shinichi having to suffer. Tears stung at her eyes, but something stopped them from overflowing. She was in too much shock to cry.

But the shock wouldn't be able to hold them back for long.

* * *

Shinichi felt his heart break in his miniature chest as Ran began screaming. _What have I done...?_ he tortured himself. Soon, when it looked like her call with Hattori was drawing to a close, he put his book down, getting up from the couch to softly tread towards her.

She was sitting on the cold floor, curled up tightly as she shook with her tears.

"Ran-neechan...? Are you alright...?" he asked softly, hating now more than ever the necessity of adding the "neechan".

Tiredly, she shook her head and, when she raised it to look at him, he was surprised by the absence of tears. He could see them swimming in her eyes, yet none stained her cheeks. "...No, Conan-kun... I...I don't think so..."

What should he do...? He'd never been good at consoling people, and now the situation was a thousand times worse than any other time he'd seen someone cry. Because this time, he was the cause of her sorrows. This time, he would give anything to be able to say those two little words that would make everything right. But, even if he did give everything, it was still impossible.

So he did the only other thing he could think of.

* * *

Ran barely held back a gasp as Conan suddenly wrapped his tiny arms around her. Staring at him, she saw that he was looking away, probably unsettled by seeing her crying.

He'd always been such a sweet child, always being there when she needed him, saying the things she needed to hear. Now he was silent. Just like she wanted. Any other person his age would probably be pestering her with questions about what was wrong.

As this thought flew through her mind, she wrapped her own arms around Conan, burying her face in his hair as she breathed in deeply. It was good to have someone there.

_What's wrong...?_ she asked herself. _Everything,_ her mind replied. With that short call, her whole world had come crumbling down. She had fallen off the mountain she'd been climbing, and now she was lying at the bottom of a chasm, broken and bleeding.

She was shattered and there was no way to make her perfect again. There would forever be a scar on her heart, threatening to reopen.

But for that to happen, she would first have to begin healing. Something that she knew wouldn't happen for a long, long time.

Why? That was the question wasn't it...? Sure, Shinichi had been a little smug at times, but he'd always meant well. He had always been there, a shoulder to cry on during her darkest hours. So where was he now?

Gone. And he would never be coming back. She would never again walk with him, not really going anywhere. Just spending time together. Just savoring every moment. That's the way she'd always felt when she'd been with him. The goodbyes had always come far too soon. And this time there would never be another hello.

This time, there hadn't even been chance for a goodbye.

How could someone have killed Shinichi? How could someone kill _anyone_? Shouldn't that person know just how hard the death would hit the victim's loved ones? Why couldn't that murderer have thought about what it might mean to others? To her?

Never. Never would she have imagined that something could've happened to Shinichi. Never anything of this magnitude.

And never had she gotten to tell him how she truly felt about him. Never had she gotten to know how _he_ truly felt about _her_. Maybe it was better that way. With things left unsaid. Unchanged. However he'd felt about her would never be known, but it would never be different. He'd felt that way about her until the end.

What had his last thought been...? It was impossible to know, but she liked to imagine that he'd been thinking about her.

He was...dead. Finally the truth of it made its way into her conscious mind. And as it did, the first tears trickled down he cheeks, slowly at first, then more rapidly. As if she was crying all the tears that she'd been holding back for a year.

* * *

Shinichi closed his eyes as he felt Ran's tears hit him. _What have I _done_?_ he questioned once again. Because of him, this sweet angel had fallen from its cloud, down to the hard, cold earth. And she had been crippled, never again being able to properly stretch her wings.

If he lived to be a million, he never would've wished to have her so miserable. But if he hadn't done this, she may have felt an even more unbearable pain.

What would've happened if he was killed by the Organization and she still knew he was alive at the time? If that happened, Conan would die too. How would she deal with the knowledge that two people she cared about so much had died at the same time? And that those two were actually one? That he'd been lying to her all along?

He would never know now. He hoped.

He stepped away from her as she loosened her arms, looking up to try to gauge from her expression just how much hurt she was in. As he did this, noticed that, as she stood, she seemed to be putting more of her weight on her left foot. When he looked down, he was surprised to see that her sock was stained red.

"You're bleeding, Ran-neechen!" he exclaimed, once again looking up worriedly at her.

"Oh...So I am..." she sniffed. "I must have dropped the knife I was using when Hattori-kun told me-" she broke off midsentence as Shinichi saw a fresh stream of tears flowing. Tears which had nothing to do with the gash in her foot.

"Sorry Conan-kun. I just need to be alone right now..." Slowly, he watched as she made her way down the hall to her room, closing the door tightly behind herself.

As he watched her leave, he wondered to himself whether she'd be able to make it out of this without him accidentally shattering her heart into more pieces than it was in currently.

* * *

_God I love this chapter! Not much dialogue, but I hope I managed to capture the emotion properly. Please please please review on this chapter! I want to know if you guys like it as much as I do! Did you cry? Oh I hope someone cried! That sounds mean... but yeah! I REALLY hope you guys like this! _

_Also, I was looking over the quotes I've been using in each chapter and you know what I noticed? Haibara, Sato, Gin, Ran, Haibara, Haibara, Haibara, Vermouth, Haibara. Wtf is with all the Haibara quotes? I know I have ones from other characters, so why do I keep using her's? _

_As well, I reread my A/N's from the chapters and you know what I noticed? In the one for chapter 3 I list movies that I probably wouldn't watch more than once or twice. Since I posted that, I've rewatched Movie 11, The Box (twice...), and Star Trek (also twice...). Hmm... I'm being a little hypocritical here..._

_Second lastly, when I write/edit my writing I tend to listen to music. Why? Cause I like music! So anyhoosle, I was listening to some songs by my favorite artist, Amanda Falk (if you haven't heard of her, go look her up on YouTube) and I found one song that just put me in exactly the mood that I was going for in this chapter! It's called Charade, and it's not one of hers that I've listened to many times before, so I'm not sure if the lyrics fit for this, but the melody definitely does!_

_Finally, YAY! I GOT IT UP BEFORE I LEFT! That is all._

I do not claim to own any of the characters or settings from Meitantei Conan/Case Closed... blah blah blah... a bunch of legal stuff no one really cares about... All right reserved to Aoyama Gosho. You rule dude!


	12. 11: Found You

**IMPORTANT:** I'm aware that an element of the Conan plot has changed as of last fall. I would just like to point out that I started writing this last March, long before that case came out, so I will be keeping the plot of this fic the way I originally planned it. Therefore, nothing that has or will occur after file 744 will affect this.

* * *

Chapter 11: Found You

_"Well, a small planet might be impossible, whose discovery can be acknowledged when its observed several times and its orbit is confirmed, for you... But a comet might be possible since only its discovery is enough..."  
- Haibara Ai ~A Secret Letter from the Star~_

_Gin doesn't believe me… _Cider thought angrily. _The only reason he even bothered to acknowledge what I said was because it involves Sherry. What's so great about that woman anyway?_

She was in the basement of one of the buildings the Black Organization owned, cutting newspapers so that they were the size of ten thousand yen bills. The "bills" would be put under _real _bills to use during transactions. Perfect for tricking people. But the job was one that was only given to low ranking members.

_I found Sherry! I should be helping in assassinations or blackmailing or _something_ more important!_ She pulled out another sheet of newspaper, this one from a few months ago, and was about to bring the scissors to it when something caught her eye, freezing her.

An article off to the side of the page was titled "Another Case Solved by the Shounan Tantei-Dan!", and right above the headline was a picture of five young children. And one of them, hiding behind the others with the brim of a baseball cap pulled over her eyes, was undoubtedly the girl that Cider had seen at the hospital that day.

Snatching up the page, Cider sprinted out the door towards the room which Gin and Vodka usually occupied. _This is it! This is the proof I needed!_

* * *

"Alright," Gin continued, taking a sip of coffee, "So it's agreed that we meet with the subject at the aforementioned sight at-"

He stopped relaying the plans to Vodka as the door suddenly burst open to reveal an out of breath Cider. "What is it now?" he sneered, not wanting to be bothered.

"You know… how I told you… about a week ago, that… I'd found Sherry?" the woman asked, trying to catch her breath.

"What of it?" Gin demanded. He'd been waiting for an update on the traitor for what felt like forever. He had been looking forward to hearing something on her, anything, and he liked to receive information sooner rather than later.

"Well… I think I've got something." She then proceeded to walk towards the table the two men were seated at and threw a newspaper down on the metal surface. "Take a good look. That girl in the back is the one I saw at the hospital. I'm sure of it. There," she pointed to a girl in the back of the picture, "That's her."

Interest spiked, Gin cast his gaze to the picture. But it wasn't the girl Cider was pointing at that caught his immediate attention. Also in the picture, clutching onto a bespectacled boy in the front, was a little girl with dark hair and a pale pink hair band. A sense of familiarity suddenly washed over him as his eyes widened. "Vodka, look at this. Isn't that girl in the front the one from the alley?" he spoke, not taking his eyes off the picture.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noted his partner shifting in his chair to get a better look. "You're right, Aniki! But what could it mean?"

"What do you mean 'that girl in the front'?" Cider cut in angrily. "Look! It's the girl the _back_ who's Sherry!"

Tearing his eyes away from the first girl, Gin peered down at the one his ally had been pointing out so fervently. There were defiantly similarities. Most of her face was hidden by her hat and the other children in front of her, but he could still see her well enough. The hair style, the shape of the eyes, the expression on her face of one of beyond that of the child's years… All was hauntingly familiar to that which had adorned Sherry. But could it really be her?

The facts started filling his mind. There had been a vent in the room Sherry had been locked in, far too small for an eighteen year old woman to slip through, but for a child? There would have been more than enough room.

No! That was unreasonable! Hadn't he seen Sherry fully grown that night at the Haido City Hotel? Not to mention that it was impossible to become that young again! Unless… Could it be…?

"You see it, right?" Cider cut in. "Also, look at the boy she's hiding behind. He was the one helping her get the files off the hospital computers. Do you think there's any connection between him and the man who helped Sherry that time at the hotel? I was told about it by some of the other agents, so I got to thinking…"

Looking towards the boy in question, Gin was amazed at how well the puzzle pieces were fitting together. The boy was definitely a familiar figure. Gin had seen him the that day when the where two assassination attempts had ended as just that. Attempts. It had never been confirmed who had put the tracker and listening device on Kir's shoe, despite it being suspected to have been those FBI rats.

He originally had believed it to have been that famous detective, Mouri Kogoro. The man had been a second away from being killed by Chianti before something had stopped them. What was it though? How had they learned that the man was innocent?

The boy, that's how.

Thinking about it, that boy seemed to have appeared at other times. There had been a time in a train about a year ago. A few days after he and Vodka had made that transaction with the woman, Gin had heard that the bomb had been taken off the train seconds before it had detonated, not harming anyone. And if he remembered correctly, there had been a boy on that train wearing glasses who had acted awfully strange when he'd bumped into the two hit men. The boy in the picture.

Was that boy behind the bomb's extraction that day? It _was_ still unclear how anyone had found out about it… Wait… Hadn't there been gum in the ash tray of Vodka's seat when they'd been discussing the bomb? And hadn't the trackers and listening devices found at later incidents been wrapped in gum? Could it be that there was a bug in _that_ piece of gum?

It couldn't be! How could that boy have even known about Gin and Vodka?

But at the hotel where Sherry had appeared, hadn't she been wearing glasses? Glasses that, if he remembered correctly, resembled those on the face of the boy in the picture?

"The boy in the glasses," Gin muttered vilely, "He's partnered with her."

"So it really is Sherry?" Cider chirped.

"Yeah, there's no doubt about it…"

* * *

Shiho froze as a cold shiver ran down her spine. This was it! After hours, _days_ of searching she now had an almost perfect match.

On the screen in front of her, so bright in the dark room, was the face of what looked to be a thirty six year old Gin. He looked undoubtedly younger than now, but despite that, his seemed almost unchanged. The biggest difference between the two was the eyes, so soft in the picture that it almost made her doubt whether it was really the stony eyed man she knew.

According to the file, he'd been killed in a car crash only months after the picture had been taken. Shiho hated to think about what poor person had been murdered to act the part of the body.

But the most important thing about what she'd found: In large block letters at the top of the record… Gin's real name.

* * *

"So you finally figured it out, huh?" Vermouth breathed from just outside the door which had been carelessly left ajar by Cider. "It was bound to happen eventually." Taking a quick, calming breath, she strutted into the room. "Well, don't you people look busy."

"What do you want this time, Vermouth?" Gin sneered, to which Vermouth just winked in response.

"I was just passing by when I heard Cider's voice coming from here," she explained, glancing at lower ranking agent, "You aren't usually allowed on this level, or am I mistaken…?"

The woman simply glowered at Vermouth, unable to muster up a response due to her outrage.

"So what is it that you were all worshipping here?" Vermouth needed only to glance down nonchalantly at the newspaper to confirm that she hadn't heard them wrong when she was eavesdropping.

"Nothing that concerns you," Gin growled, dismissing the woman. Vermouth allowed a small smile to slip as she turned to leave and "accidently" knocked over Gin's mug of coffee so that the names of the children in the picture were warped beyond recognition.

"What the-? _Come back here_!" the long haired assassin yelled after her as she haughtily glided from the room, pulling the heavy door to a close behind her.

* * *

_**A/N: **Hey! So I finally got the new chapter out after... seven months! Holy-! Okay, if that happens again, you guys are allowed to yell and bitch at me all you like. I know you're not looking for- Dude, on the tv just now they showed a Bourbon Street... Coincidences are scary... So back to what I was talking about, I know you're not looking for excuses but I just want to explain myself. So I actually wrote most of this back in August, but I didn't upload it due to not knowing how to write a scene that was going to be at the beginning. I ended up just taking it out in the end since I figured out another place I can put it that I actually can write. So I figured that out about 4 days ago and was _going_ to finish and upload this, but for whatever reason half of the chapter had disappeared mysteriously and have still not turned up so I had to rewrite it. And the rest of the time was just me being lazy. XP_

_I'm not sure when I'll get another chapter of this up, but I'm planning to start a system where each week I pick one of my ongoing fanfics at random and try to get the next chapter of that out by the end of the week. I'm doing this since, along with this, I have 3 other fics that I haven't even started uploading yet (which you can read about on my profile ^w^) so by doing this, I'll get chapter up regularily without favouring one in particular._

Detective Conan, also known as Case Closed, was created by Gosho Aoyama. I own nothing but my imagination.


	13. 12: Close Yet Far

**Chapter 12: Close Yet Far**

_"If you have faith and wait, he'll definitely come back. A lover will never betray you."_  
_ - Mouri Ran_

Why did you have to die...? Ran thought as she laid slumped on her desk. In her hand was the picture that she and Shinichi had taken on the day the two of the had gone to Tropical Land a year ago. The day when the end had started.

A fresh wave of tears flowed down her cheeks as she thought of this. Shinichi had still been so young when it had happened to him. He'd still had so much life to live. He'd had a future.

A future that Ran had been hoping he'd spend with her...

Succumbing to her unending despair, she allowed every las tear she'd been holding back to flow free. She remained like that for hours until finally she wept herself to sleep, the photo still grasped tightly in her fingers.

* * *

Shinichi pressed his ear to the door, waiting for the muffled sounds of crying on the other side to quiet.

Once the noise had ceased, he gently opened the sealed door, paying extra care not to make any unneeded sounds.

Cautiously, he crept closer to the desk where Ran had fallen asleep. Climbing onto the rung of the chair that held the chair legs in place so that he could see her face better in the moonlight filtering in through the window.

She looked hauntingly pale in the soft light, reminding him again of that cruel dream and the reason he was forcing himself to do this.

Glistening on her cheeks were the still wet tears, their existence slowly growing less visible as time passed.

Despite the events that had taken place earlier in the day, Ran's face was peaceful. Was she dreaming sweet dreams? Shinichi was glad she could grasp onto that little bit of happiness. "Shinichi..." Ran breathed, startling him. Had she woken? No, she was just talking in her sleep. "Don't...Don't leave me..."

No. Even her dreams seemed to be clouded by what she believed to be true. "I'm here, Ran," he whispered, just loud enough that she'd hear it without it being loud enough to wake her. "I'll always be here..." I hope... he added to himself.

Without giving it much thought, he raised his too small hand to gently stroke her long, dark, hair.

"Please forgive me."

* * *

"Hey, Ran? Are you alright? You seem to be spacing out a lot today," Sonoko said to her friend.

"Yeah... I'm fine, just a bit tired," Ran replied, only half paying attention.

"The police don't want to cause a stir, so they're keeping it under wraps. We're lucky that I managed to convince them to let me tell you, but if you tell anyone we'll get in trouble." She remembered Hattori having said that over the phone the morning beforehand. She had to keep it a secret.

"Not surprising. It took forever to wake you up!" Sonoko complained. Ran had fallen asleep the night before after completely forgetting that she'd promised to go to a movie with Sonoko the following day. She'd only woken when Sonoko had pounded on her bedroom door around noon. They'd planned to meet at the movie house around eleven. "The really annoying thing was that little brat. He wouldn't even let me into your house at first. I had to push my way through."

"Conan-kun did that?"

"Yeah, he kept saying to just leave you alone. That kid can be kinda creepy sometimes."

"Yeah, he must have been lonely I guess..." So he'd figured out that she'd wanted to be left alone that day. Once Sonoko was set on something though, there was rarely a chance of stopping her.

"So what movie do you want to see?" the bubbly girl asked as she and Ran arrived at the theater.

"You can decide. I'm good with whatever." Ran didn't really care. She didn't feel like she could really pay attention anyway.

"Okay... Let's go with this one then!" Sonoko decided, pointing to a poster of what looked like a typical romance. The two friends quickly bought their tickets and were soon sitting near the back of the theater waiting for the ads to end and the movie to start.

* * *

"I'm home!" Several hours later, Shinichi heard Ran call this familiar phrase. Putting the TV on mute, he had to force himself not to run to her, still worried about how she was feeling after the call the day before.

"Welcome back. How was the movie?" he asked as she walked over to next to him on the old sofa.

"Alright, I guess. Nothing special."

She didn't seem to be lying, however now that she was so close to him, he noticed something that he hadn't before, "Hey... Why are your eyes red...?"

"Are they?" she exclaimed, clearly jolted and obviously nervous about the subject, "The... end of the movie was sadder than I'd expected. I guess I got a bit choked up..." She flashed him a reassuring smile, but somehow it seemed forced.

Was that really all?

* * *

That night, Ran lay in her bed, unable to fall asleep. She found that in her tired state, she couldn't help but think back to all the times that Shinichi had come back, however brief they may have been.

In doing this, she remembered when he'd come back during the school festival in the guise of the Black Knight in the play. Had he'd hugged her at that time by his own accord? She'd assumed it had just been more of Sonoko's meddling, but even so, he wouldn't have done it if he hadn't wanted to... right?

And if there hadn't been that murder and that woman hadn't screamed, would he have kissed her...?

Then afterwards, he'd invited to dinner at that fancy restaurant telling her he had something to tell her. He'd looked so nervous at that time. What could it have been? Thinking about it hadn't he also said he'd wanted to ask her something during that case when someone had been impersonating him... He'd said he suspected that what she wanted to ask was the same thing... Could it have been?

But it was too late to find out... right?

With this thought in mind, she quietly got out of bed and made her way through the darkness to her desk. There, she picked up a notebook that she hadn't used yet and a pencil. Opening to the first page, she began writing.

* * *

"You're not?" Shinichi asked Ran the next morning at breakfast after she'd stated that she wouldn't be going to school that day. "Why not?"

"I've just been feeling a bit out of it for the last couple days," she replied innocently.

"Did you get in a fight with that brat detective or something?" Kogoro asked looking at his rice, apparently not noticing Ran jolt at the mention of Shinichi.

"Nothing like that! Just stay out of it, Otou-san!" she replied nervously.

"Ah!" Shinichi exclaimed, looking at the clock, "I agreed to meet Genta early today! Thanks for the food, Ran-neechan! Feel better!" With that, he hurriedly grabbed his bag and slip on his shoes, barely hearing Ran call a farewell.  
He hated making up the excuse, but he was worried that he might tell Ran the truth if he was around her for too long.

Once he'd gotten to school, he went to his classroom and started reading while he waited for other people to show up. Lost in the book, he managed to momentarily push what was happening in his life to the back of his mind and barely noticed when his classmates came in. Seeing this, Haibara walked over to him and began talking: "So, how did she react?"

Thrown back into reality, Shinichi couldn't help but cringe as her question of what had happened the morning of the call. "Not as well as I'd hoped, but better than I'd feared I suppose..." he replied reluctantly, setting his book aside.

"You should try to keep an eye on her for a while. Girls tend to be controlled by their emotions more than guys," she said stoically.

"I don't know how strong I am... I've been tempted to tell her the truth even more now than before."

"And you didn't know to expect that? If you tell her now, you'll have put her in unnecessary pain."

"You think I don't know that already?" Before anything else of the matter could be said, the teacher, Kobayashi, entered the room.

"I have some bad news, class," she started, instantly causing the class to grow quiet. "Some of you may have noticed that one of your classmates, Ayumi-chan, hasn't been in school for a few days. I'm sorry to say that we were told over the weekend that she's passed away."

A ripple of whispers broke out across the classroom. Shinichi looked over to see Genta and Mitsuhiko seemingly frozen with shock and Haibara with her eyes closed mournfully while he himself could only stare ahead. He already knew, but hearing someone say it aloud made it seem more real. So the police had found her body, huh?

The rest of the school day passed swiftly with the class enveloped in an overbearing sense of dread and soon it was time to go home. Genta and Mitsuhiko both went home silently, still in shock from the news of Ayumi's death, and Haibara soon followed suit. This didn't bother Shinichi though, for he had something that he'd wanted to do since Kobayashi had told the class the news that morning.

After he was far enough away from the school that he didn't think any of his classmates would see him, he ducked into a back alley and pulled out his cell phone and dialled Megure's work number. He knew exactly who to ask for.

"Moshi-moshi?" the aging police inspector answered.

"Hi, Megure-keibu!" Shinichi responded, layering on the cute, "Can I talk to Takagi-kun?" Usually, he would have used Shinichi's voice, however he didn't want to run the risk of Ran somehow hearing about it, so he instead stuck with Conan's voice.

"Ah, Conan-kun! Sure, just a minute."

A few seconds later, he heard the phone connect and the younger officer answered, "Moshi-moshi?"

"Hey Takagi-keiji. I heard about Ayumi-chan earlier. Is there any chance you could tell me a bit about that?"

"Ah... Well, I'm not really supposed to tell civilians about that sort of thing..."

"Please, it may be important."

"I... guess I can make an exception..."

"Thank you." He'd expected to be able to get Takagi to give him some information. The man seemed to have an idea that Conan wasn't your average kid.

"Let's see... Um... Her body was found last Friday at a dock about twenty kilometres from where we suspect she was killed. We decided to look there after getting a call from a fisherman saying that he'd seen some men dumping something in the water a few days earlier. Along with her body, we also discovered that of a man estimated to be in his mid thirties. Both bodies had a bullet wound in their head, shot executioner style, as well as Ayumi-chan had another in her calve which was created pre mortem. It also seems like there were two gunmen as the bullet hole in Ayumi-chan's head didn't match the other two."

"Hmm... What colour hair did the man have?"

"Uh... Red, oddly enough. We figure he must've been a foreigner."

"You're sure it was a man?"

"Huh? Yeah, it was. Why?"

"Just wondering." _So it wasn't an Organization member I'm familiar with..._ Shinichi thought. "Anything else?"

"Only one more thing. Neither body had any sort of ID on them. It's not very surprising with Ayumi-chan, but it seems odd that the man wouldn't. We figure the killers must have taken away any to hinder an investigation if the bodies were found."

"I see. Well, if that's all, then I should probably be heading home. Thanks Takagi-keiji."\

"No problem, I guess."

Putting the phone back in his pocket, Shinichi started hurrying towards the Detective Agency.

"I'm home!" he exclaimed a little while later, kicking off his shoes as he stepped through the door. He was surprised though that no one answered. Kogoro was snoring away on the couch, but where was Ran? "Ran-neechan?" he called, walking towards the bedrooms. She'd stayed home from school, so maybe she was sleeping? "Ran-nee-"

He cut off as he stepped in something... wet? Water was seeping out from under the bathroom door. But why? As he looked at the water for a moment he noticed something... The water was tinted red.

"_Ran_!"

* * *

_**A/N:** Yay! Finally got the chapter up! So as I've stated on my profile, I'll be focusing on this for a while and I'll try to get at least one chapter up a week again, since I've had this ongoing for _way _too long. Oh and by the way, WE'RE IN THE HOME STRETCH! From here on out there will be little, if any, filler and so this fanfic should be finished in an estimated five chapters! Yay! I'm honestly getting so sick of having this weighing on the back of my mind... Not that I don't enjoy writing it and I do want to see it finished, but it's just been going on for so long!_

_Any way, as I said, I'll try to get a chapter up a week, but I may miss a few weeks since I'm starting high school tomorrow and three of my four core subjects are in the first term._

Detective Conan, also known as Case Closed is property of Gosho Aoyama. I own nothing but my imagination.


	14. 13: A Desperate Situation

Chapter 13: A Desperate Situation 

_"A detective who corners someone with logic but let's them commit suicide is no different from a murderer himself."  
- Edogawa Conan ~Bonds of Flame~_

"_Ran_!" Shinichi burst through the door into the small room, immediately enveloped in steam. A few feet from where he now stood he could see Ran's figure slumped against the side of the tub, the water overflowing the side and splashing off the smooth tile. In her pale hand, he could make out a kitchen knife, its blade wet with blood.

His worst fear, the one that he'd tried so hard not to consider the possibility of, was happening.

_God… Oh God…! She's dead…! She's dead and it's all my fault…_

Rushing to her side, he began calling her name in an attempt to wake her up. Her face was so pale… Just how much blood had she lost…? Fearfully, he raised his hand and rested two fingers on her neck, just below her jaw. "She's alive..!" he sighed with relief as he felt a weak pulse. That didn't mean it would stay there for long though.

Grabbing a hand towel and shampoo bottle off the nearby counter, Shinichi began to make a tourniquet around her bleeding arm, resuming his cries to her.

"Oi, brat! What's with all the noise…?" he heard Kogoro yell, his voice growing louder as walked towards the bathroom.

"Oji-san!" Shinichi called, "Call an ambulance! Quick!"

"Eh? Why should I-" Shinichi heard the man's footsteps cease as he reached the bathroom. "What the hell happened! Is that Ran!"

"That's not important now, just call for an ambulance!"

"Yeah… Right!" The footsteps resumed in the opposite direction, must faster this time, and a few moments later Shinichi could hear Kogoro talking on the phone with someone. Turning back towards Ran, Shinichi was stunned for a moment when he noticed that her eyes were now half open.

"_Ran_! It's going to be okay! Your dad's calling an ambulance! You're going to be fine."

"Shinichi…" she breathed, barely loud enough for him to hear from where he kneeled hardly a foot away.

"Don't say anything! You need to save your strength! You're going to live! You have to!" he cried, his voice breaking at the end. He would make sure she lived. There was no way he could allow her to die like this, while she still didn't know the truth. But even so, her eyes began to close again. "_No_! Please Ran! Please open your eyes!" He hugged her body tight to hers, screwing his eyes shut as he tried to stop from crying.

_Why…?_

He looked up at her face again to see her eyes closed once more. Had she really said that or had he imagined it? Either way, he couldn't let that that be her last word.

"Move aside kid, you shouldn't see this kind of thing." Shinichi looked up to see an EMT looking down at him. The ambulance must have arrived. Despite his wishes, he accepted that there was no more he could for her and allowed the professionals to take over.

As he stood up, he noticed for the first time that there was a piece of paper lying on the counter with some writing scrawled on it. _So I was right…_ he thought after reading it over quickly, his knuckles white. _This is all my fault._

* * *

_I hope Ran's alright… _Sonoko thought, walking down the street towards the detective agency. With how Ran had been acting the previous day and now her not coming to school, Sonoko had gotten worried. _What the…?_

As she drew closer, she realized that the ambulance she'd seen from farther down the street was parked in front of the agency. At that moment, a stretcher was being brought down from the stairs and she saw who was in it. "Ran? _Ran_! What's wrong? What happened to her?" she yelled at the nearest EMT.

"Just let them take care of her!"

Sonoko turned to see Conan hurrying down the stairs, panic and fear evident on his face. "What happened…?" she asked, eyes wide. The kid had always seemed so calm even at murders and such. What had happened to Ran to make him look like that? Conan jumped into the back of the ambulance where she could already see Ran's father. Pushing aside the EMT who was about to close the door, she forced her way in. "I'm not getting out. I'm Ran's friend and I want to make sure she's okay," she stated as the medic looked at her, perplexed.

Seeming to accept this, the ambulance sped off in the direction of Haido Central Hospital, sirens blaring.

* * *

A few hours later Shinichi sat in a holding room at the hospital with Kogoro and a crying Sonoko. Ran had gone into the ICU as soon as they'd arrived at the hospital and the doctors wouldn't let anyone in. Was it normal for it to take this long?

Just then the door opened and Eri walked in, worry present in her expression. "The hospital called me," she told Kogoro, "Why would Ran do something like this…?"

"We don't know. We just found her in the bathroom with her wrist slit… We don't even know the reason…" Kogoro replied, sitting down and resting his head on his hand.

Shinichi gritted his teeth and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. "I… found this in the bathroom. I think Ran wrote it…"

Kogoro snatched up the note and began reading it as Eri looked over his shoulder at it. Shinichi didn't need to have it in front of him to know what it had said. He hadn't been able to get the messily scrawled words out of his head since.

_I'm tired of waiting… My entire life for the past year seems to have just been me hoping for things that may never happen. I know now that the thing I've been waiting for most is impossible. Shinichi is never coming back. I've realized that, but I can't accept it. _

_Instead of me waiting for him, he's now waiting for me. This way, we'll be able to be together. _

_I'm sorry dad, mom. I hope you know I love you and please don't think badly of me because of this. I'll miss you and my friends. I want you to tell Sonoko and Kazuha that I'm sorry if this hurts them and I'll miss them as well. _

_Conan-kun also. You're probably reading this yourself, aren't you? I'm sure you would let them just tell you what's written here. Keep working towards your dreams. You're smart, so I'm sure you'll be able to take care of whatever lies ahead. Don't give up just because I have._

_I love you all. Please don't forget that._

_Forever your daughter and friend,  
__Mouri Ran_

"Damn it!" Kogoro snarled after he'd apparently finished reading, "So it's all that brats fault that Ran did this! If I ever get my hands on him…"

"Dear! Stop that! You know Shinichi-kun didn't know this would happen when he left and I'm sure he has good reason for being gone," Eri tried to calm him.

Clenching his fists, Shinichi turned tail and for the door. "Where do you think you're going?" Kogoro growled at his back.

"There's something I need to do." With those words, he disappeared.

* * *

Ran squinted at the bright light filtering through the window as she opened her eyes. Beside the bed where she lay she could see a young boy resting his chin on his hand, a book sitting in his lap as he slept. "…Conan-kun…?" She breathed, her throat rough.

She watched as he startled awake, jolting to his feet as he saw her. "You're awake!" he exclaimed, a smile appearing on his tired face.

"Where am I…?" She wondered aloud, glancing around the white room.

"You… Don't remember what you…" he began, trailing off.

He'd said enough though. The memories came flooding back to her as she became aware of a dull pain in her left wrist. Raising it, she noticed that, along with an IV, there were now several ugly rows of stitches running parallel to one another. "Oh… Right… I guess it didn't work then." She just stared at her arm blankly for a minute, half out of sadness for the reason that she'd done it and half out a fear of the fact that she _had_ done it.

The war between her emotions was paused however when she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Conan was staring at her looking oddly serious, even for him. "By the way, is anyone else here? How long has it been, anyway?" she asked.

"It happened yesterday, so it's just morning now," he explained. "Your parents are in the cafeteria now though since Oji-san was complaining about being hungry."

"That's just like him…" Ran complained, trying to sit up without it affecting her wrist.

"I'll go get them," he added, walking towards the door. "That reminds me though; there was someone else here who wanted to see you first."

"Someone else…? Who is it?" But he was already out the door, leaving her alone to her thoughts.

As she lay there waiting, she began to remember more and more exactly why she'd done it and the emotions came flooding back. Why couldn't it have worked…? More and more she began to wish that it had. After a few minutes, she bottled up her remaining courage, mixed with the pain, and raised her wrist, so that she could she could see the stitches better, and grasped some of the stitches on the worst looking slash with the nails of her opposite hand.

As she was bracing to tear them from the wound and reopen it, the door opened and the sight of the person behind it caused her to freeze. "…Shinichi…?"

* * *

_Finally got around to finishing this... Obviously I'm not very good at the one week thing... Anyway, I think I did an okay job with this chapter, the last part especially. I wasn't originally going to have Ran almost tear out her stitches, but as I was writing it, I realized I needed a segway and this resulted from that. I don't know, I like it._

_I realized while reading it over that I'm not very detailed more the midsection of this chapter and the EMTs get there a bit too fast in the first scene, but oh well. I'm too lazy to try to fix it and I figure it's good enough so I should just get the chapter out._

_On a grander scale, I wrote up a chapter by chapter outline of what will happen from now on (my writing this was part of the reason the chapter took so long... -.-") and it looks like this will end at around twenty-five chapters. The next chapter will probably be a bit short unless I decide to combine it with the following chapter (whichi is also kinda short...) so that will probably be out relativly quickly, though there's one part I still need to work out that could give me some problems..._

_That aside, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and, incase I don't get out the next chapter before then, happy Halloween!_

_Oh, one last thing before I go; I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but honestly **look at my profile!** Really! I update it almost weekly with news on ongoing and upcoming fics. **Please check it out!** I don't think many people do right now but that's where I put sneak peaks and news on if a new chapter will be up soon._

Detective Conan, also known as Case Closed, and it's characters were created by Gosho Aoyama. I own nothing but my imagination.


	15. 14: Penny for Your Thoughts

Chapter 14: Penny for Your Thoughts

_"I always think there's a red string that binds Shinichi and I together."  
- Mouri Ran ~The Timebombed Skyscraper~_

I'm here to relieve you," Vodka said as he walked into the small room. Twirling his chair around, the other agent beamed and rushed out the door, sneering the words "have fun" behind him.

Due to the fact that he didn't have any other assignments to take care of, Gin had decided to give Vodka one of the shifts watching the monitors for the various cameras set up at the Haido Central Hospital. It was a job that no one wanted: sitting in a room alone having to watch two dozen screens, each changing to a different camera every half minute unless instructed otherwise. Cider definitely hadn't gone easy on how many she'd set up, undoubtedly hoping that it would help to bump up her rank. You could see almost everywhere in the hospital.

Looking over the various monitors without much interest, he paused the camera rotation for one of the screens suddenly as something familiar caught his eye.

After watching for a few minutes, he flipped out his phone and dialed Gin who picked up on the first ring as usual with an answer of "What is it?"

"There's something on one of the monitors that I think'll interest you, Aniki."

"Oh? Wait there, I'm coming over." Without another word, the line went dead and in no more than a minute the long haired hit man appeared through the door. "What did you find?"

"Look for yourself." In the monitor Vodka pointed to was a feed from a camera in one of the hallways, in which walked a teenage boy. A teenage boy who shouldn't have been alive.

"That's-!" Gin exclaimed as the boy's face came fully into view.

Vodka grinned as the boy opened a door to one of the rooms. "Should we watch him?" he asked, his fingers hovering just above the sound button.

"Oh, yes."

* * *

"Ran, stop!" Shinichi yelled, running towards her as he realized what she was trying to do. As he reached her, he grabbed her forearms, not moving them in fear of accidently aiding her in her intentions but at a loss for what else to do.

"Shinichi…? But… how…?" Looking up from her hands that had now gone slack, Shinichi panicked when he noticed shocked tears rising to her eyes.

"Wait! Hey, don't cry! Look! I'm here, you're okay…! Everything's fine!" he floundered, trying to find the words that would make her stop.

"I thought you were dead, you idiot!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck as her tears increased. Shinichi quieted, silenced by shame. He'd known to expect something like this, but it still hit him hard. "It's really you, isn't it?" she gasped through her sobbing, "I mean, you're not a ghost or hallucination or something, right?"

"I'm sorry… I… I didn't want to hurt you…"

"So you were behind Hattori-kun telling me that?" she asked, unwrapping her arms from him and leaning back into the hospital bed as she wiped away her tears. "How did you think that I wouldn't be hurt?"

"I knew it would… I was just hoping it would be better than the alternative."

"Alternative?" she repeated, her tears beginning to be replaced by anger, "What alternative?"

Shoot! He hadn't meant to say that! "N-nothing! It's not important!"

"_What alternative_?" she said again, glaring at him now.

"I… I can't tell you. Doing so would only put you in more danger than you're already in."

"So I'm already in danger." She concluded somewhat smugly.

"…Yes," he admitted begrudgingly, "But you shouldn't be in_ immediate_ danger right now. That's why I had Hattori call you. It'd be better for your safety if you weren't associated with me."

"Because I'm completely safe on my own," she laughed curtly as she flashed her wrist at him, making him flinch visibly.

"So I guess what you wrote in that letter really was the reason…" he thought aloud, lowering his eyes.

"…You read that, huh?" At her words, he hesitantly looked up, only to find that she too had averted her gaze.

"You were really willing to throw away your life for a reason like that? I'm not worth dying for, you know. Especially not for you."

"What do you care? It's your fault anyway, you shouldn't blame me," she replied defensively, her words stabbing into him like a knife. He had already guessed, of course, that he was the one to be blamed, but for her to actually say it like that...

"I was doing for your sake! I didn't want Them to kill you!"

"'Them'? There's a 'Them' now? Please Shinichi, why am I in danger? They're not trying to kill you or something, are They?"

"I can't tell you," he replied, clenching his teeth. He'd already come to the conclusion that he'd probably have to tell her a bit about the Black Organization to get her to fully understand why he'd faked his death, but he'd rather avoid it if possible. At this point though, it looked like a lost battle.

"Please Shinichi! I want to know!"

It looked like it wasn't much of a choice anymore. "Fine," he sighed, sitting down in the chair that he had as Conan only a little while earlier, "I'll tell you, but you can't repeat what I'm about to explain to you to anyone, got that?" He paused for a moment for Ran's confirmation and, upon seeing her nod, continued. "A year ago, on the day we went to Tropical Land, the reason I ran away was because I saw someone acting suspicious and decided to follow them. It turned out that he had a rendezvous with a person he was extorting in order to collect the blackmail money. While I was watching however, his partner snuck up from behind and hit me over the head.

"They decided that I knew too much, so they decided to keep me quiet permanently and shot me in the stomach." As he explained this, he raised the hem of his shirt to reveal the scar on his abdomen from when he'd been shot in a cave that one time as Conan. He wasn't ready yet to reveal his double identity to her so this would work as a cover story for now. "I succeeded in some basic first aid once they'd left and managed to escape to Asaka and get some treatment for the bullet wound. If They learn that I'm still alive though, They'll very likely try to kill me and anyone who gets in their way."

"But how do you know They'll find you?" Ran cut in, "Maybe it's just those two guys."

"I've had enough run-ins with Them since that night to know that that's far from true," he chuckled humorlessly. "They're much more dangerous than I initially thought, not the kind of people who will hesitate to kill someone. Even if that person's innocent," he added, fixing his gaze on her.

"So that's why you've been gone for so long then? Because you don't want people to get hurt?"

"Yes. That and because I've been investigating Their syndicate. I won't be able to return to my normal life until I've brought Them down.

"I will come back though. For good, not just a little while. I promise. Do you think you can wait until then?"

"Of course! I mean, I-" she broke off suddenly, her face reddening.

"You what…?" Shinichi asked, genuinely curious about what she'd been about to say.

"…What do you think of me…?" she questioned after a moment of silence.

"Huh?" he jolted, blushing at the unexpected question. "I… Well, you're important to me…" he replied, avoiding eye contact.

"That's all, huh…?" he heard her mutter under her breath.

"Oh? What were you hoping I'd say?" he asked playfully as he returned his gaze to her, amused to see her face turn completely red as she cast her eyes downward.

At the sight of this, a sudden notion crossed his mind. He got up from his chair and slowly stepped towards the hospital bed where she still laid and rested his hand of the side of the mattress, leaning towards her questioningly. She seemed startled for a moment before apparently realizing his intention, at which point she shyly closed her eyes. Happiness flooding through him, he followed her lead by closing his own eyes and slowly leaning towards her, feeling her breath dance across his face.

"Jeez, dear! You can't smoke in a hospital!" Shinichi bolted upright, spinning around to see Eri and Kogoro walking into the room, the former apparently cross with the latter. "You're awake, Ran!" Eri cried, seeing her sitting up in the bed. "Are you feeling alright, honey?"

"Y-yeah…"Ran replied quietly.

"Oi, brat!" Kogoro snarled after noticing Shinichi, "What are you doing here? You didn't try anything on Ran, did you?"

"Of course not!" he countered quickly, though he felt his cheeks heat slightly and, out of the corner of his eye, noticed Ran blushing furiously. "I'm just here 'cause that Conan kid told me what happened to Ran so I thought I should make sure she's okay."

"And do you know _why _this happened to her?"

"…I have an idea."

"You fucking brat!" Kogoro yelled, raising his fist. Shinichi didn't even try to evade as it collided with his jaw.

"_Shinichi_!" Ran gasped as he was knocked to the floor. "Otou-san! Don't! We talked and everything's fine! I won't do it again!"

"It's not fine! You could have died!" When he looked up at the man, Shinichi was surprised to see tears running down Kogoro's face. As he watched, Kogoro covered his eyes with his hand and said one again, "You could have died…"

* * *

"Aw… And it was just starting to get good…"

Gin and Vodka spun around from the monitors to see someone standing in the doorway. "Vermouth… What do you think you're doing here?"

"I heard about your little plan to find Sherry and I thought I'd see how it was going," she answered haughtily, striding over to the cluster of screens.

"Yeah, this is definitely an interesting development, but I'm not sure it relates to Sherry."

"Actually, Aniki," Vodka cut in, "There was something I noticed before I called you." With that, he found the feed from one of the man's bathrooms and rewound it until it reached a point where a young boy entered.

"That's the boy from the picture Cider showed us!" Gin exclaimed suddenly.

"So I wasn't imagining it," Vodka snickered.

As the video played, the boy entered one of the stalls, at which point Vodka sped up the video. After a few minutes of time had elapsed, he played the video for a few seconds before a different person emerged from the same stall and Vodka paused the video. "Look familiar?"

_So it's time…_

"Well, well…" Gin said with a cold smile, "What do we have here…?"

* * *

**_A/N:_** _Holy quick release! Also, trollololololololol. Hee hee… Honestly though, this is based on one of Gosho's works. What were you expecting? _

_Anyway, I can't believe I managed to get this written so fast! Well, actually I finished typing it yesterday… And I finished the rough draft on Tuesday… But either way, this is still a quicker release than usual and I'm happy about it._

_I apologize for some OOC Kogoro, but really, he may be Kogoro but he's still a dad so I don't think it's that farfetched. Also I noticed that during the end of Shinichi and Ran's scene I started writing Shinichi more like the love interest in a shoujo manga… Which is kind of weird considering I read more shounan then shoujo, but oh well. I tried to make it more in character and I think I got most of it so =P._

_I actually already have a fair amount of the next chapter written out on paper so it very well could be out next week._

_Until then, happy Halloween everyone! _

Detective Conan, also known as Case Closed, and its characters are the creation of Gosho Aoyama. I own nothing but my imagination.


	16. 15: Run

Chapter 15: Run  
_"It's the ace of spades that represents Shinichi. I've been holding onto it this entire time, since I believe he'll be my side to protect me."  
- Mouri Ran ~The Fourteenth Target~_

"The doctors said that Ran will probably be out of the hospital by the end of the week!" Shinichi said happily to Haibara as she sipped a newly brewed cup of coffee. It had been almost a week since Ran had been admitted and her doctor had stated that day before that she would probably be released early since her wrist was healing well and she hadn't shown any signs of depression or mental trauma.

Even after Eri and Kogoro had left that day, Shinichi had stayed with Ran for a while until a nurse had come and told him that he should allow her rest and he had left, promising to come back the next day. They hadn't really talked about anything important; just made small talk, enjoying each other's company. Neither brought up the subject again of why Shinichi had disappeared nor did they mention what had happened before Ran's parents had burst in. The former was because of a silent agreement between the two that they'd rather try to forget about that for a time, the latter because neither of them seemed to know how to bring up the subject without it being awkward.

Once he'd left, Shinichi had gone to Agasa's house where he'd had to ask the aging scientist call the detective agency to tell Kogoro that Conan would be spending the night there, not a complete lie considering that really was where Shinichi had slept. Of course, Haibara had had a word or two with him that night about using the prototype antidote without her permission…

The following day, he returned to the hospital as promised. After only a few hours however, he's had to fake getting a text message about a new break in his case when he'd felt the first signs of the antidote's affects wearing off.

Since then, he'd been returning for a few hours a day as Conan, wanting to spend more time with her but unable to due to school hours. He talked to her about happenings in his class and she in return told him about Shinichi's visit among other things. Nothing much that he didn't already know, but he was glad to see her more upbeat again.

"Ah!" he gasped, snapping out of his recollections as he noticed the time on a clock behind Haibara. "Shoot! I'm gonna be late!"

"Off to see Ran-san again?" Haibara asked as he hurried to the door.

"Yeah, she finished the books I'd brought her, so I thought I'd bring a few more from home today."

"Just like an old married couple."

"Hey, cut that out!" he protested, blushing slightly as she smiled knowingly.

"Enjoy your date!" she joked as he disappeared behind the door. "Who knows how many more you'll have..."

* * *

Cider watched as the boy ran out of the large, white house, smiling broadly as he parted. What captivated her interest though wasn't the boy at all, but rather the small strawberry blond girl who was watching him leave soberly through one of the windows.

Taking out her phone and dialing a now familiar number, she waited a moment for the other person to pick up before stating firmly, "She's here. Begin the operation."

* * *

_I wonder how close Shinichi is to bringing down that crime group… _Ran pondered as she waited for Conan and her father to arrive, _He can't be too close if they don't even know he's still alive… _Her thoughts, however, were interrupted suddenly by a sharp knock on the door. _Oh! They're here! _"Coming!" she called, slipping out of the hospital bed and walking quickly to the entrance. "Hey Otou-sa-" Her greeting went unfinished as she saw two unfamiliar men clad all in black standing in front of the doorway. "Who are you?" she questioned, having a vague feeling that she'd seen them somewhere before.

"Get back inside the room," the closer one with long blond hair growled just loud enough for her to hear. She was about to try a karate kick on the suspicious man when she felt something press against her stomach. Looking down slowly she noticed the barrel of a gun with a silencer attached and, terrified, began to follow his command.

Once the three of them were fully in the room, the second, heavier built man lightly closed the door. "How much do you know about Us?" the first man questioned.

_Know them? _she wondered, _I've never seen them before. _"Nothing!" she managed to reply.

"How much do you _know_!" he repeated, not taking the question at all lightly as he shoved the gun more firmly into her stomach.

"I really don't know!" she squeaked.

"Fine then… What are your relations to Kudou Shinichi?"

_Shinichi…? Why would they…? _As she pondered his question, she suddenly realized why she thought she'd seen them before. Darting her eyes back and forth between the two several times to make sure she wasn't mistaken, she whispered lightly under her breath, "You're the guys from the roller coaster…"

"What are you talking about? I don't need to knock to enter my own daughter's room!"

The two men whipped their heads around to look at the door, which was sliding open to reveal two all too familiar faces.

"Otou-san, Conan-kun, _run_!"

* * *

As he heard Ran's cry, Shinichi jolted his head away from where he was staring, deadpan, at Kogoro to look towards her and what he saw there made his heart lurch in his chest. _Gin!_ "Oji-san, get out of here!" he yelled, looking back at the old man.

Just as the words left his lips though, a quick hissing sound resounded and Kogoro fell to his knees as blood splattered from his shoulder, Ran screaming. Looking back towards the others, Shinichi saw smoke rising from the end of Vodka's silenced gun.

"What are you-! Dammit…!" Kogoro his, clutching his shoulder as he tried to get up to attack the assassins.

"Sorry, Oji-san!" Shincihi said under his breath as he used his watch to knock him out, knowing that Kogoro would have been killed if he'd been allowed to act on his intent.

"Otou-san! Conan-kun, what did you do!" Ran screamed, looking both terrified and baffled by this point.

"Don't worry, he's fine," he replied, turning back towards the three to noticing Gin smiling eerily. "Dammit…" he swore quietly as he noticed Gin's gun and began kneeling down to turn the dial on the side of his shoe.

"Don't even think about it." He froze as he saw Gin raise the gun to Ran's temple, causing her to wince.

"Let her go, Gin! She has nothing to do with this!" he yelled, Ran looking more panicked as she realized that he knew these people.

"Wrong. She became involved when you didn't die that day." Shinichi flinched at the familiarity of the words, his mouth going dry as he realized how similar this was to the dream he'd had in what seemed like a year ago. He also flinched for another reason though, and that was the fact that Gin seemed to know with a disturbing certainty just who he was really talking to.

Before anymore could be said though, Gin nodded his head briskly at Vodka who proceeded to shoot out the window behind Gin, Ran letting out a short cry as one of the bullets hit barely inches away from her head. Once about a half dozen shots had sounded, Gin hit out some of the shattered glass with his elbow before turning back towards the inside of the room and saying the words that Shinichi could remember hearing him say once before: "So long, detective." As soon as the words had escaped his lips, he quickly raised the gun from Ran's temple before bringing it down sharply on the back of her head, knocking her out. The two men quickly jumped out the second storey window, dragging her off before Shinichi had more than a fraction of a second to react.

As fast as he could, Shinichi ran to the window where he saw the two men already getting into a black Porsche. Just as he was considering chancing whether or not he could make the jump down to try to stop them, he felt his phone vibrate from his pocket and, after checking the caller ID, answered it. "What is it, Haibara?"

"Kudou-kun! They've got Hakase!"

* * *

**_A/N:_**_ Yay! Another chapter! Even though I could've gotten this out easily two weeks ago if I wasn't lazy...! Still, YAY! Just five more chapters and the prologue, then this'll finally be done! (Honestly though, the only reason this wasn't out two weeks ago was because I was too lazy to write in the Cider scene. Which ended up being two paragraphs long. I'm ashamed of myself.)_

_I should tell you though that due to the fact that Haibara refuses to let me write her properly in the next chapter, so chapter 16 could take a while to get out... I'll keep trying though and I'll try to upload it as soon as I can! _

All characters from the Detective Conan series, also known as Case Closed, which is owned and created by Gosho Aoyama. I own nothing but my imagination.


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